


There, But For The Grace Of God, Go I

by Hambone



Category: Transformers Animated (2007)
Genre: Coercion, Corruption, Crush Fetish, Dubious Consent, Emetophilia, Government Conspiracy, Hospitals, Lies, M/M, Mental Instability, Mentions of Suicide, Mind Games, Mob Mentality, Murder, Public Execution, Sickness, Sticky Sex, Trust Issues, Vomiting, one sided affection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-01-25 10:32:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 16
Words: 66,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1645484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hambone/pseuds/Hambone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Repeating the same mistakes, over and over again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Act 1: Lying

**Author's Note:**

> This is not the chapterfic the Shockwave/Blurr pairing deserves, but it's all I've got in me. I have nearly the whole thing already written out, and was originally going to hold off on posting until I had the entire work completed, but my excitement has once again gotten the better of me.  
> I was inspired to write this originally as venting for a very unpleasant bought of illness I recently went through and am still fighting, months and months later, but it grew into something much more than that.  
> Heed the warnings, this one is not so kind as what I've written before.

When he first woke up, he knew nothing. The room he was in was empty, and dark, aside from a few colored lights. Some of them were blinking, and others remained steady, bright holes in the blackness, like the point of a laser target. He did not turn to look at them, although he felt he should.

He did not move at all, in fact. He saw the low, gridded ceiling above him, and the little winking eyes in the dark, and that was enough. There was a myriad of little electronic noises too, piercing the air in their own steady rhythm of pings and blips and beeps. He wanted to be curious about them, but he wasn’t.

It was as though he were not really here at all. A dream, perhaps. He felt nothing. There was no sense of space or horizon. He could not feel what he was suspended by, if anything. There was no world outside the grid, the lights, the beeping.

Then there was. The door to the room opened, on his right, bright, clinical lighting spilling into the room in a flood, sweeping several nurses and a medic in with it. When the beam fell across his face his vision pixilated, and he did feel then: pain. He couldn’t bring himself to tell them, though. They crowded around him, clasping little data pads and bags of fluid to their chests. He could tell they were speaking, but it was so unbearably slow that even with careful concentration he could not make out the meaning of the sounds they made. They reached over him, and under him, but he couldn’t discern if they were touching him or not.

Another group of people pushed their way in between the nurses, firm and assertive, bending down to look at him directly. They also had data pads, but a larger brand, the kind used by tacticians and scientists. He managed to swivel his optics, for the first time since he had opened them, to return their stares. They spoke to him then to each other, then to him again. He watched their mouths move and wondered if he knew them.

When he tried to remember, a sharp pain bit into his processor, sharper than the pain the light from the hall had brought, and the room began to shake violently. All the nurses began to panic, but they reached for him and not each other, which he thought was a stupid thing to do because there was no way he could save them from the tremors. Even as they did this, though, the quaking became more subdued, and the more of them pressed their hands against where he assumed his body was, the steadier things became.

He looked back at the two who had come in late and was disturbed to find that the room was getting dark again. A deep, black fog crept into the corners of his vision, closing in fast until he could hardly see them anymore. A sudden urgency rose inside him, what little concept of which he currently had. They needed to know something. He needed to tell them. The world was ending and he was the only one who could stop it.

He couldn’t see where they were anymore, though. He turned his head from side to side, looking, but they were nowhere, there was nothing. The desire was so strong he felt he might burst into flame at any second, or freeze solid, something painful and improbable and worthy of the end of times.

None of that came to be. Instead, Blurr fell back into stasis.

* * *

 

 When he next awoke, he knew everything. The room was the same, but a window had been opened by the foot of the berth, illuminating the medical terminals hooked up to his body. There was a medic in the room, sitting in a small fold out chair in the corner, idly sipping from a cube while reading.

All of this he determined within the same moment his optics came online, and in the next moment he was up, ripping the plugs from his medical ports and swinging his legs off the berth. He had to get to Ultra Magnus. There was a spy. A spy who had tried to kill him. A spy who would eventually kill everyone. Everything would be over if he didn’t get out of here and into the Magnus’s office immediately and he didn’t have time for the medic’s surprise, for answering his questions.

The moment his feet hit the floor, everything burst into motion. Colors swam across the walls and equipment, which mutated and deformed before his optics, as if made of molten alloy. Pain exploded from his point of contact with the ground and shot up through his circuits like a flash blaze, and he doubled over at the force of it. Then kept doubling over, again and again, rolling forward through the swirling hell of light and sound.

Hands were on him. The medic, someone else. He wanted them to get off him because wherever they touched burned even worse, and he tried to tell them so but when he opened his mouth he purged his tanks. The two did not stop, even then, pressing harder against him and he wanted to scream but couldn’t, which only made him panic more and he retched again.

He felt them move him but couldn’t tell where, everything was spinning. Raising his hands up above his body he tried to grab at one of them, because even through all this he still had to relay his message, had to tell someone the truth, but before he could manage to get hold of them something stabbed into the back of his neck, lancing another streak of agony up his spinal column. Cybertron itself rocked, and then went dark.

* * *

 

“I know how hard this must be for you to hear.”

First Aid rested a hand gently on Blurr’s arm, as if to console him. It hurt, a lot, but Blurr did not show it. The medic was trying his best.

“It wasn’t our first choice to keep you here like this, but we know someone with your…” he struggled for an inoffensive choice of words, “you particularities is probably better off this way, for the time being.”

Blurr started at him dully. The hand began to rub nervous circles, probably unintentionally, and he winced. First Aid did notice then, and drew back quickly, fretting.

“Your motor relays can easily be reactivated though, don’t worry. As soon as you’ve integrated enough with this body to keep it from being…unsettled, when you move it, we will turn them back on.”

Turning his head slowly, painfully, Blurr observed the window. It was still open. He could hear the vague noise of traffic below, but no voices. There was loud, garbled music at various points in the cycle, seemingly permeating the entire city below. Judging by the distance of the sound, Blurr estimated they were at least three vuns up. There were not many buildings like that in Iacon. They were in Fortress Maximus.

First Aid was still speaking. His voice had a smooth, melodic quality that was at odds with how awkwardly he fit together his sentences. Unwilling to go through the trial of turning his head back to face him, Blurr simply listened.

“While your programming was badly damaged, the transplant was a complete success. These things simply take time to heal.” There was a practiced peacefulness about him that had the exact opposite effect it was intended to on Blurr. He recognized its falsity. Recent developments had led him to be more sensitive to secrecy than most and the idea that while he was here, like this, he was being lied to was certainly not a pleasant one.

“Your vocalizer will reactivate once the programming has fully developed and synched, and you and then we will be able to open a cleaner route of communication.”

Blurr did not respond, optics on the window. The music was playing outside again. It was repetitive and patriotic sounding. People were cheering.

“You don’t have to worry about a thing, agent.” First Aid clasped his hands in front of his chest as he stood; a reserved gesture intended to hide his discomfort.

“We’ll take care of you.”

* * *

 

There were nurses attending him round the clock. They didn’t do much, really, just sat in the corner staring into their data pads, bored. They tell him it’s to monitor his life signs, spark patterns, etcetera, because integration is a hard process and things easily go wrong. Blurr, still unable to move more than his neck and head, suspected there was something more to it. They do not trust him to be alone, but he cannot fathom why.

The nurse who is currently with him gets up abruptly and walks into the hall. This happens every once in a while, so Blurr is not suspicious. However, he does not come back in immediately afterward. Instead, Longarm Prime walks through the door.

His reaction is as violent as someone with no voice and nobody can have, disbelieving, horrified. His mouth opens and closes rapidly, and Longarm can hear his teeth click against each other. Blurr tries to lift his head, straining to find the nurse, call them back in, but the door is closed. Longarm pulls the chair over from the corner and situates himself at Blurr’s berth side, solemn, calm.

Already worn out Blurr stops and simply stares, optics as wide as they can be. He feels the pain of his fresh face as the expression twists it but is unable to retain composure. Longarm folds his hands in his lap. His eyes are weary and sad, but he smiles a little anyways.

“Agent Blurr.”

The monster made no attempt to hide his real voice. They are alone, and it is quiet, but it shocks Blurr anyways. He tugs his head back to stare, open mouthed, at the red disc on his former boss’s forehead, the movement jagged and violent, as if he could pull away from his useless body and escape that way.

“I imagine you have already grasped the gravity of what my visiting you means.”

Blurr didn’t know if he had or not. He had believed before that his perception of reality was the correct one, but Longarm had already once disproved that. He didn’t trust him not to again. Longarm did not break his gaze away for one moment, optics flickering up and down the length of Blurr’s body. He had not actually been shown it yet, and could barely lift his head to look himself, but if it were anything like the soft, fresh planes of his shoulder piles, it was probably very queer to observe. His armor wasn’t solidly formed, reflexes nixed. Totally vulnerable.

“I was…” Longarm paused, tongue barely visible, pressing against his dental grill as he tried to force the word out.

“…pleased. To hear that you had survived.”

It was unusual to hear Longarm speak so haltingly. Everything he had said before had been calculated, planned out, and now he was grasping for loose wires. Another scheme, surely. Blurr could not keep the anger from flooding his optics, mouth finally closing to form an ugly grimace. Longarm saw, his smile drooping.

“I know it sounds contrived, but it is fact.” He shifted to grasp at Blurr’s hand, and his touch was gentler than the medic’s.

“I have no further reason to lie to you. It would be so easy for me to end you right now, you know.” Their optics simultaneously traveled to the mass of cords hooked up to Blurr’s medical input and then back.

“But I will not. I want you to listen to what I have to say.”

Blurr could feel those thick servos, so much colder than he remembered, tighten slightly around his palm. He wanted to rip his arm away, sick with the knowledge he could not. Longarm brought his second hand up to cup Blurr’s tiny digits, pulling them to his chest as he leaned in. His face was honest and open and Blurr hated it with all the passion his spark contained.

 _How dare you. How dare you come here now_.

“Megatron is dead,” said Longarm, emotionless. “Lugnut is captured. Starscream is dead. Strika and her troops are disbanded.” Not putting Blurr’s hand down, he righted himself.

“The Decepticons lost. It is over.”

He didn’t want to hear any more. It was too much, too soon. He wondered why the nurse hadn’t come back inside. He wondered why Longarm, Shockwave, the monster, tormented him still. His vision began to glitch. His tanks swam. The walls were closing in again and this time he could not even run. Somewhere through the haze, he watched Longarm’s lips pull down at the corners.

“I see you are unprepared for this.”

Blurr opened his mouth and gasped, desperate to relieve some of the tension in his throat, which felt crowded and hot. Longarm’s fingers were still wrapped around his own, cold, cold, cold.

“We can discuss this later. I will get the nurse.”

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to Blurr’s limp knuckles, watching him. Blurr shook, condensation beginning to form on his plating. Placing his hand neatly back in the position he’d dragged it from, Longarm stood, appraised him, and left the room. Blurr thrashed his head from side to side, confused and hurt. Why had this been allowed to happen? Why would no one save him?

The nurse came back in, considerably faster than he’d left. Running over to the berth, he immediately began typing code into one of the terminals, to sedate him. Trying to mouth the words, Blurr silently called over to the nurse, desperate. Longarm was standing in the doorway, arms at his sides. He looked concerned.

Blurr purged on his own chest.

* * *

 

“His tanks are still too new to withstand this kind of turmoil. If he continues purging at this rate, he will tear a hole in the lining and spill high power solvents into his mid-torso cavity.” Perceptor was being blunter than First Aid would have liked. Blurr was right there, after all.

“He isn’t purging because of preexisting damage or, or what we’re feeding him! He gets worked up. There’s nothing we can do to stop him from being scared.”

Perceptor eyed him dully, as if he were looking at a particularly bland table.

“That is true. At this stage in the integration, it could cause irreparable harm to his brain module if we attempt to suppress emotional discharge.” His frown deepened in thought.

Blurr shuttered his optics and listened. He was so, so tired. Recharge never seemed to yield release, and it did not come easy. The only reason he even knew the difference between off cycles was that they would close the window, the sole source of light in the room aside from the indicators and monitors on his equipment.

“He needs stimulation. Perhaps we can get him a vid screen in here? Monitored channels only, of course.” First Aid covered his mask with a hand as he spoke the last part, leaning away as though Blurr wouldn’t hear him. It was insulting, but hardly the biggest concern of the moment.

He burned with the need to tell them. Since Longarm’s visit, the desperation had increased tenfold. No one had told him anything of the political climate, of what had become of the Earth mission, how long it had been since he had been offline. With his new frame, his chronometer had been reset. Checking it only drove him to distraction, the impossibly short time since its activation blinking proudly at him as if he were truly insane.

“That would be acceptable, but it would have to be very, very carefully done. Any mistakes could cause another reaction.”

“I know.”

They both stood over him, looking at each other. He could see the filaments in First Aid’s optical visor shift to glance at him from time to time, but Perceptor may as well have been in the room alone. It was awful, because Perceptor was so smart and Blurr just knew if he would look, if he would just try to understand what he was telling them, Perceptor would figure it out. He could still save everybody. But he wouldn’t.

First Aid wrung his hands.

“Our grief counselor is on vacation…”

He sounded so forlorn that is was almost comical. Blurr didn’t need a grief counselor. They were doing everything wrong. It was painful to watch like this, so close to having completed his task. His spark began to whirl faster, and an alarm sounded on one of the monitors.

“Oh…” said First Aid, turning to him. He craned his neck towards Perceptor, hoping, begging for him to look. He could tell him. He could fix this.

Perceptor turned and left the room.

* * *

 

Longarm came to visit again. Blurr had been mentally preparing himself for this moment, but when it actually came all the time he’d spent dredging up courage was rendered useless. He could not do it.

Again, Longarm came in alone. Again he pulled the chair over and sat. They stared at one another. Blurr quaked. Longarm sighed in that voice that wasn’t his.

“Oh, Blurr,” he said, crossing his legs smoothly. Blurr opened his mouth, then closed it.

“I am incapable of feeling regret.” He stared down at him, expression hard.

“I believe I acted appropriately for the situation at hand. Had I not destroyed you then, everything I had worked for and, consequently, my kind relied upon would have been pointless. Vorns of collected data, of work. My solitude here.” He cocked his head to the side. “Surely, you can understand that?”

Was he looking for forgiveness? Now, here, in this dead white room, while Blurr was unable to move or breathe or think without pain? His face must have made his disbelief clear because Longarm’s expression fell away to nothing.

“No,” he said, “I am not making an excuse. As I said, I do not regret. I do not need an excuse. However I feel I must make clear to you why it had to be done.” He leaned over Blurr’s berth in a sudden, sharp movement, arm extending to plant itself firmly on his other side. Blurr was caged beneath him, thrown into his shadow. His optics had to reset. He shook his head from side to side, looking for an escape route.

“It is imperative you understand, Blurr. I had no prior designs to damage you.” The red orb lit up, dimly, but enough to spur total recognition in Blurr. His ventilations stuttered and stalled, and he coughed raggedly. He was trapped, he was trapped, he was trapped…

Longarm pulled back.

“I know you do not want to hear this from me, after what I did to you, but I must speak.” Everything was spiraling out of control. “In our short time together, Blurr, I must admit I developed an affection for you.” The room whirled and Blurr gasped as the movement knocked the wind out of him. An alarm went off, then another. The nurse ran back in.

Standing up and backing away, Longarm clasped his hands together in exaggerated concern. Even as his body tripped into another spasm, Blurr kept his optics on him, wide and tight in his new face, so, so angry.

* * *

 

No one told him anything. This was not to say he was never spoken to, but when he was it was simply soothing words, as though his vocalizer wasn’t the only part of his head that was damaged. He wanted to know how long he had been gone. He wanted to know what had become of the Earth team, of Megatron, if anything. He wanted to know why Ultra Magnus had not sent an agent down to visit him personally with words of recompense for his heroic sacrifice and suchlike, a customary procedure. It was odd to have to wait this long. Perhaps he had been overlooked.

It would not surprise him.

He wondered if it was because something bad had happened. Of course the nurses seemed happy, because peace and platitude was their job. First Aid had told him they were going to try and keep him away from stress, that that was why he had his free movement temporarily taken away. Considering the implications made him panicky, and he had to work very hard to suppress it, lest he go into another fit.

That would, after all, only serve in prolonging his sentence.

Still, he wanted to know. The waiting, the theorizing; it was making him insane. He wanted to know if what Longarm had told him was the truth. He wanted to speak, to ask the medic first hand.

Infuriatingly, he was denied. After a while, a darker question began to form in his mind, one that he tried to ignore, because, surely, they were not keeping things from him intentionally. Surely they had nothing to hide. They were good, loyal Autobots after all.

* * *

 

They had wheeled in a vid screen, a very old model that had been in storage since before Blurr was protoformed. Still, it worked, and as it was the Med Unit’s property there was no need to put out any extra expenses on it. First Aid brought in a series of data files and asked Blurr to nod if liked one, if he wanted anything in particular. They were all very tame options, older films, frivolity.

Blurr wanted to feel indignant, but he was so glad to have a distraction he couldn’t find it in himself. He would watch any of them, all of them. So he did.

The nurses still attended his berth side constantly, but they rarely paid attention to the screen with him. Some of them were films he had seen before, and he would experience the odd, somewhat painful sensation of a memory file being fully restored, flooding him with images of quiet nights in his flat, or group trips with his speech therapy group. Phantom sensations of threading his fingers between his first partners’, Velocitronian dirt caking their boots. He yearned to speak.

There were so many little connections that still needed to be sparked inside his brain. He knew who he was, he remembered why he was here, but the little details still needed to settle. Each time another one slid into place, he was caught, for a moment, reliving it, sometimes to pleasant effect and sometimes not. Many of them were mundane at best; making a meal, a password for his office computer, the way he had to pound the enter key four times on the code strip for his apartment’s door lock.

Others were too good, precious moments of freedom that left him fiending. He would find himself caught up in a recollection, running out across the open highways, driving somewhere, free, and wake up aching at the stillness. Though he could not voluntarily control it, his body would spasm and shudder from time to time. The nurses were at a loss, unable to drain the excess energy without risking damage to his new form.

He did not recharge. First Aid recognized this early on and would periodically come in to induce stasis, keeping his defragmentation process running at a semi-normal rate. When Blurr awoke, he was disoriented and frightened, the walls looking too close and the ceiling too low. He would have begged First Aid to leave him be.

In an uncomfortable attempt at compassion, a large portion of the movies First Aid brought were his own favorites. It was mostly action films, though he took care to leave out the particularly violent ones. They were low grade, incomprehensible power-fantasy drivel. Blurr was surprised by this, and a little disappointed. Many of them included a lot of racing, which left him uncomfortable and dissatisfied. He preferred the documentaries. They were, at the very least, distracting.

 Longarm came to visit while one such film was playing. They had dragged in a chair from another room to keep permanently beside Blurr’s berth, likely at his request. He sat, greeting Blurr. Very dull, very pleasant. Blurr bristled, kept his optics on the vid screen.

Instead of this prompting Longarm to leave, he simply turned in his seat to watch alongside him. As if he should enjoy his company. As if this were normal.

After a few kliks, Longarm leaned in close.

“Is this really the kind of thing you choose to occupy your time?”

Blurr did not look at him. He would not.

“I think you and I both know better than that.” Longarm stretched out and switched off the film.

The nurse had left the room. They always did, when Longarm came. Blurr wished they wouldn’t. He wondered what Longarm had told them to make them do so.  

To spite him, he continued to deny Longarm his gaze, staring instead at the now blank screen as if this little act of defiance would mean something. Seeming content with that, Longarm pulled out a data pad of his own, pulling up some files and beginning to type. It was deskwork, Prime things. Blurr watching his fingers move out of the corner of his vision.

He did not know how long they remained this way, but it must have been a long time because the lights from outside began switching to off-cycle dimness. The music from before began to play, and Longarm paused, expression darkening, until it ended. The angle began to hurt Blurr’s neck, and he let his helm fall back against the berth until all he could see was the grid of the ceiling. He was disturbed by little flashes of memories, Longarm and himself sitting together like this, in peace, during their lunch breaks. Of course, Blurr usually carried the conversation then.

He was angry that the monster continued to hide, continued reminding him of those feelings. He wanted Shockwave to show himself, dispel any illusions that things could be the same again. He wanted the sickness to return full force, as it had when he’d first been visited by his boss, to remind him of why he was here. He wished he would just kill him.

 After a point Longarm stood again, packing away his work.

“I don’t suppose you’d like me to turn the film back on?”

Relenting to his weakness, Blurr rolled his head to the side and looked at him. Longarm took his hand between his own, as he always did, bringing it to his chest as if to show he was truly earnest.

“I will be back tomorrow. I hope to find you in better spirits then.”

The nurse did not return immediately after he left, and for a few kliks Blurr was alone in the darkness.

* * *

 

Blurr was not raised on Cybertron, and as a consequence all the stories he knew of the Third Great War were retold by older bots who didn’t have great memories or second hand tales spun by eager eyed cadets in his class. Their credibility was dubious, if one bothered to give them the benefit of a doubt, but they managed to entertain and they were completely different from the dull lore of Velocitron.

He had not heard much about Shockwave, before his profile became mandatory reading, after his induction into the Intel Agency. Even then, there was little information. Young bots hadn’t heard of him and old bots didn’t want to talk about him. There was, however, one story Blurr had been told that had stuck with him through the stellar cycles, partially because it involved the mysterious shape shifter and partially because the tale itself was such a novelty.

At some point during the war Shockwave had been captured after a poorly constructed bomb laid by an underling had gone off with him in the vicinity, damaging him badly. The crew who brought him in was small, their ship not much more than a scrap heap with an engine, but they managed to construct a field container in the back room to keep him in. They took no other prisoners.

They decided that, even in his sorry state, Shockwave was too dangerous of a prisoner to leave at any time, so they had chosen to leave one guard back with him at all times, switching out periodically throughout the cycle. All this was relayed to the command hub of a larger Elite Guard ship passing in a nearby galaxy, who they intended to leave the prisoner with and go on their way.

The ship arrived on time, a little over a deca-cycle after their transmission had been sent, but when the Guard hailed them they received no response. Boarding the ship they were shocked to find every crew member dead and Shockwave missing. It would have been a straightforward case had it not been for the nature of their fatal wounds, which all seemed very small and controlled. It was unlikely that Shockwave could have off lined so many trained warriors this easily in his condition.

Luckily, the ship had internal surveillance. It was visual only, and even then the quality was not the finest, but it was wholly intact and that was all they could ask for at this point in time. They watched the crew drag the unconscious body of Shockwave into the containment cell and decide who would guard him first. After a while he seemed to awaken, pushing himself up with his remaining arm and observing the room. Then he leaned forward and spoke to the first guard. They would not make out his words without any lips to read, and the only clue they had that he was even talking was the reactions of the other bot.

She did not like whatever he said, rapping the field with her blaster angrily. He leaned back and appeared to bother her no more. However, when the post changed, he spoke again to the new guard, who experienced a similar reaction. And the next one, and the one after him. He did not stop attempting to communicate, even after the cycle had run through itself and he was back to the first bot. Eventually they stopped responding with anger, seemingly ignoring him. Still, he tried.

The crew became listless. They did not speak to each other. Their duties in maintaining the ship were performed as if by drones.

Then, when the time stamp in the corner of the video reached less than two cycles from when they’d arrived, the members of the crew broke off from one another, secluding themselves just the way they’d been found, and, one by one, they began to take themselves offline. The Guard members were horrified. The act seemed to come out of nowhere. All of these bots were known within the ranks. They had friends. They were well adjusted.    

Shockwave pushed through the field barrier as if it weren’t even there, walked up to the emergency exit bay, slipped inside an escape pod, and left. 000

Despite his working chronometer, the cycles blended together. First Aid began to forget which films he had already shown, and would sometimes replay them, occasionally more than once. Blurr began to hate them, hot with anger every time the medic would enter the room. He had not had a fit in a lunar cycle, did not feel the crawl of sickness when he was touched. He wanted to move again, burned with the need.

Perceptor came back, once. He said nothing to Blurr, hardly looked at him. He was talking readings from the monitors though, plugging a data slug into the terminals one by one, silent and efficient. Blurr watched him work and wondered if he would have been the best person to inform of Longarm’s true nature. There was no compassion in him. What would he have done with the information?

When he had finished, he finally did acknowledge the patient, looking at him with a small nod.

“Your integration seems to be progressing at the expected rate. Your physician will have the test results by next cycle.” And then he left.

Blurr did not pretend to know all the intricacies of the body, certainly not what exactly went on after a full spark transplant. He had been here longer than he had expected though. His glitch generally ensured that all the processes of his frame were accelerated, healing included. If this was truly a quick recovery, he found the concept of supposed normal length of the process mindboggling.

Oddly enough, Wheeljack visited him next, about three cycles later, very early, before the lights had gone to full brightness and his window had not yet been opened. He was, of course, still fully online, staring up into space. Perhaps at another time it would have been nice to have the distraction, but Wheeljack had always made Blurr nervous. He had been caught in a couple of accidental explosions caused by the scientist before, when visiting Perceptor for various reasons. Of course, he’d never been seriously damaged, but there was something else, something darker about the scientist that he didn’t trust.

Wheeljack pulled over Longarm’s chair, flipped it around so the back faced the berth, and sat, open legged, looking down at him.

“Hey kid. How ya’ feelin’?”

Blurr glanced down at his body, then back to his visitor. He made a face. Wheeljack laughed.

“Yeah, I know.” Rubbing his muzzle with his index servo and thumb, he surveyed the prone form.

“Armor came out very nice. Should be fully settled soon.” He reached out and ran a hand down Blurr’s waist experimentally. Though the touch was scientific, it made Blurr heavily uncomfortable and he looked away.

“Mm…” pausing in a few places, Wheeljack would prod and squeeze, testing the mechanics underneath with short bursts of electrical resonance from his fingertips. Despite seeming to sense Blurr’s discomfort, he did not stop.

“Sorry to get a little handsy, but I like doing things with my own two mitts, ya’ know? Just makin’ sure the scans were right.” Blurr did not see how this would be more effective, if it were effective at all. There was nothing he could do about it though, so he looked back up at the grid above. Some of the work lights outside were finally beginning to activate, illuminating the room in a pink glow. How soft everything looked.

Wheeljack pinched his upper thigh. Normally it would have been an annoyance at best, but so much inert energy had built up since his stay here that two things happened simultaneously. Involuntarily, his legs spasmed, kicking out and nearly clocking Wheeljack in the face as a bolt of electricity shot up through his core, and Blurr threw his head back, gasping, because a deep pocket of pain receptors, long-offline, burst to life.

Pulling away, Wheeljack waited out the twitches. Two of the machines hooked into his lower torso went off, but he reached over and silenced them.

“That’ll happen, from time to time,” he said, unapologetic, “it just means things are working right.” 

Blurr wanted him to leave.

The nurse walked in.

“What’s going on?” he had been drawn by the alarms. Wheeljack stood, explaining. Blurr stared up, not listening, phantom stabs of pain lingering in his legs.

“Not today,” the nurse was saying. He nodded towards the window, mouth a light line, optics flickering between Wheeljack and the berth. Some unspoken signal seemed to pass between them. Wheeljack consented, jotting something down on a notepad and handing it over.

“I’ll come back tomorrow, I guess.”

Blurr prayed he would not.

* * *

 

There had been a time when Blurr had loved Longarm with all his being.

He was already an agent when Longarm joined the Intelligence Agency, had been for nearly a thousand stellar cycles. It seemed odd someone so soft and disarming would want to be involved with the Guard at all, even in an area that had little to do with combat. Blurr assumed that perhaps he hoped to move, as Cliffjumper had, into a secretarial position. It paid well, and gave him certain social standing, without any of the field work.

This did not end up being the case. While Blurr had initially given the bot no mind, Longarm’s motivation and skill drew much attention to him in the department. Within four stellar cycles, he had reached Blurr’s level and within the fifth he was moving his things into desk down the same hall. Trading data files instead of going to the vault to look them up was not an uncommon practice in the office, and once or twice their paths crossed that way. Longarm had been obliging, made an effort, albeit a stiff one, to ask if he was well. Blurr had found him rather handsome and was a bit embarrassed by the stream of words that spilled forth from his mouth at even the slightest prompting. But Longarm smiled, nodding as if he understood.

Twelve more stellar cycles passed, and Longarm was promoted again and moved out from his cubicle. Blurr would occasionally be startled to see someone else at his desk, and then chide himself for it. This was around the same time that he began to receive longer away missions, further and further out into the nexus of space. He began to lose track of his few friendly acquaintances. He was forced to quit his speech therapy group, due to excessive absence.

Seventeen stellar cycles after they had first met, Longarm approached him in the cafeteria and asked if he could join him. Blurr had recently returned from an incredibly unpleasant trip to Io, some damned corner of the galaxy that had several reports of potential Decepticon activity. It had, of course, been a dud. There was nothing there but rocks and dirt and a terrible little race of mechanical beasts whose defense mechanism included kamikaze tactics. He was feeling decidedly worse for wear and had just wanted to lunch in peace.

He hadn’t seen Longarm in what seemed like ages, though, and the fact that he’d even been remembered was touching. So he accepted.

He did not regret it.

Their conversations were awkward and halting at first, because Longarm had very little to say and Blurr had everything in the world on the tip of his tongue. Blurr always felt he was talking over Longarm, and he would cut himself the moment the other bot opened his mouth, even though half the time it was simply to take a sip from his cube. For the first time in a long time, he felt ugly and overbearing, and it showed. It did not deter Longarm, though. He took his time with Blurr; encouraging nods, asking related questions. He understood, and that was the best feeling for Blurr. He developed a crush.

They found their break periods often coincided, and made it a ritual to meet up whenever possible. Though one or the other would sometimes be forced to bring their work with them, it never kept them from at the very least spending time together. Blurr talked about everything but himself, and Longarm gave away very little to begin with. They hardly knew each other.

They were accustomed to each other, though. A tentative trust, solidarity. Blurr’s crush evolved.

When Longarm became a Prime and subsequently Blurr’s boss, they celebrated together. It was the first time they had ever seen one another outside of the workplace, and in the beginning their interactions were fresh and raw again, the new setting putting them both on edge. They had decided on a diner near the Metroplex, nothing personal or fancy, but neutral ground. Blurr was not capable of overcharging without trying very, very hard, but he was surprised to find that Longarm allowed himself to become somewhat tipsy. If anything, it only served to stir up Blurr’s nerves even more, because Longarm kept touching the back of his hand and arm lightly, thanking him for coming out tonight, promising he would get the new chair Blurr had been wanting for his desk ever since he had broken the old one by sitting down too quickly and sliding it into the wall.

Then he had offered to escort Blurr home, which opened a whole new bundle of potential embarrassments. If they drove, Blurr would go too fast, but if they walked Longarm would tire quickly. Blurr’s neighborhood would look too cheap to Longarm, or maybe they would run into his neighbor who was always a little lewd and crude and Longarm would make unfortunate assumptions, or maybe Blurr would just screw things up himself, like always, and say too much or too little and push Longarm away.

None of that happened. Blurr talked the perfect amount for Longarm, who was not underwhelmed by Blurr’s neighborhood in the slightest, and they passed down his hallway unmolested.

This is not a date, thought Blurr, as he invited Longarm in for a nightcap. This is not a date, he repeated, as he elected to sit on the same sofa as Longarm and not the one opposite the seldom used floor table. I’m not going to mess this up, he thought, bringing a hand to Longarm’s shoulder, to his chest, leaning in with hooded optics, pressing their lips together in a slow kiss.

Longarm did not kiss back. When he pulled away, Longarm was staring at him with the saddest eyes he had ever seen.

Oh, thought Blurr, I did screw it up.

“Blurr,” said Longarm, slowly, then, “ _Agent_ Blurr.”

Blurr pushed himself back across the couch as though Longarm had slapped him.

“Oh Primus oh Primus I am so sorry Longarm I mean I am really really really sorry I don’t know what I was thinking I mean I was just, I wasn’t, I wasn’t thinking I am so, so sorry Longarm I won’t do it again I mean, oh, Primus, oh…” Longarm reached for his hand but he pulled away, standing up and covering his face.

“I messed up. I messed up, I messed up, I messed up.”

“You know that we can’t.” Longarm’s voice was imploring, low as tight, as if he were restraining himself.

“I’m your boss now. I was your superior before.”

Blurr turned back to him, face a mess of anguish.

“Please don’t say that. Don’t say it’s just because of that. Don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me, please.”

“I’m not lying.” Longarm’s brow knit. He looked at the couch.

“Oh!” cried Blurr, throwing his arms down and looking up, laughing at his own idiocy. “I’ve ruined everything.”

Faster than Blurr had ever seen him move, Longarm stood up and grabbed him by the wrists. It hurt, shocking Blurr out of his self-deprecation. Longarm was shorter than him, but in this moment he felt as though he filled the entire room. He looked straight into Blurr’s optics, mouth a hard line. There was something else there, behind his gaze, searching. Blurr stared, open mouthed.

“Blurr,” he said, and his voice sounded so low, so foreign, “we can’t. No matter how much I want you, we can’t.” his hold on Blurr’s wrists tightened until the metal creaked. “Even if we did not work together. It cannot be.”

The pressure finally became too much, and Blurr squeaked in pain. Longarm released him and he hunched over, rubbing his dented wrists. Longarm’s expression softened until all that was left of the intensity was sorrow.

“There are things about me that would keep us apart, Blurr. I will hurt you.”

Blurr looked up at him, clutching his hands to his breast.

“I don’t care.”

Longarm was genuinely surprised. His features shifted, then stuck, contemplative shock. For a brief moment, hope sprang eternal.

“You deserve more than that, Blurr.”

He let himself out.

* * *

 

People were talking out in the hall, which was novel enough on its own because Blurr rarely heard anyone but First Aid and the nurses outside, but was particularly queer now because it was about four hours after the down cycle had begun. They were excited. He couldn’t quite hear well enough to understand them, but he was able to differentiate the muffled tones from the usual hospital droning. They were getting closer, at least four pairs of footsteps distinguishable in the echoing noise.

“You know, I was against it in the beginning, but after the first few I realized it was…” this part was mumbled, he couldn’t make it out, “…can be very satisfying, you know?” The statement was met with various hums of agreement.

“I don’t see why we should feel bad anyways. They’d do the same to us in a spark turn.”

“Some bots are just soft in the laser core.”

“More like soft in the head. This is the only real option we have! The Magnus is right, if it didn’t work to do things the lenient way before, why would it work-”

“Excuse me!” that was First Aid, and he sounded angry. Blurr perked a bit.

“There are patients trying to recharge here!”

Some mumbling.

“We were coming to get you anyways,” said the first voice, a little quieter. They had moved to directly outside his door now. He could just make out the silhouettes of their feet beneath the frame, surrounded by the ugly pale light of the hallway.

“We’re pre-gaming before the show tomorrow. You wanna come?” First Aid tutted.

“Isn’t it customary to have the party after the presentation, not before?”

Laughter, considerably less subdued. First Aid shushed them again, loud with annoyance.

“Come on, Red Alert and I have the late shift tomorrow. We can’t do it then. Besides, we know you aren’t actually on the clock now.”

“You need to get out more.” Lots of shuffling, clanging as people touched. First Aid let out an indignant squawk, apparently having been grabbed.

“Fine! Fine. Just get out of the hall!”

More laughter. The voices grew quiet with distance.

* * *

 

The music was playing more than usual, and louder. He could here muffled voices, amplified by some device, echoing over the buildings. The movie First Aid had put on today was chosen in a blind grab, the medic’s other hand rubbing his aching helm. Apparently he had gone with the group, and gotten rather slagged at that. The unfortunate consequence of this was that his choice was particularly vapid, and Blurr focused his attention on the static laden sounds outside, trying to make sense of them. He couldn’t.

Longarm let himself in and excused the nurse. Blurr did not look away from the window. When Longarm sat down, he followed Blurr’s gaze and frowned.

“They’ve been planning it for weeks. Yet they act as if we are so different.” Blurr turned to give him a sullenly questioning look. Longarm seemed surprised.

“They haven’t told you?” No response. Longarm correctly accepted that as an affirmative.

“Sentinel, that blithering idiot, is showboating the Autobot victory over the Decepticons again. Every lunar cycle or so, he brings out a new prisoner for the public’s amusement.” Blurr could not stop the question from crossing his face. Longarm’s optics were distant and grave.

“Would you like to see?” for reasons he did not care to fathom, Blurr nodded.

Longarm reached for him ever so carefully. His hands slid beneath Blurr’s waist until they linked at the back. He watched Blurr’s face for any sign of discomfort, but there was none. Blurr was reveling in the feel of metal against his own, and loathing it. Lifting him into a sitting position, Longarm managed to pull him up in a fireman’s lift, close to his chest. To his credit, Blurr had enough control to keep his head from leaning onto Longarm’s broad shoulder.

For the first time since he’d woken up, Blurr looked out onto the world. It was shining and beautiful, more so than he’d remembered, but something about it rang false. Far below, masses of people were crowded, all looking up at the multiple video monitors situated on the surrounding buildings. Blurr could not recall having seen them before. They must be new additions.

Now that he was closer, he could positively identify the warbling voice as Sentinel Prime’s, except he could also read the print on the view screen and was perplexed to find that his title read “Magnus”. Sensing Blurr’s confusion, Longarm shifted him in his arms, humming distastefully.

“Ultra Magnus was a casualty in the final confrontation. Sentinel took his place.”

Blurr was lost. No one had informed him of any of this. He had only been out of the picture for a short time, but it was as if Cybertron had gone through some dramatic change as he slept. It wasn’t too far from the truth.

The vid screen panned out to show a throng of Guards and a Decepticon, one of the Starscream clones. It was weighted with stasis cuffs, unnecessarily so, and wearing a silencer muzzle. Its chest had been forcibly opened, a wedge cutting in to the glass of its cockpit to hold it that way, exposing the pulsing mass of its spark. He was horrified by the barbarism, that this was being displayed on an open channel, in front of the public. Its face was hard, resigned. Longarm’s breath tickled Blurr’s crest.

“Do you know what they are going to do?”

Blurr shook his head, lips pursed. He had never seen anything like this before. Sentinel said something and the crowds erupted into cheers. From this close, they sounded crude and mean, as if the entire mob was swearing simultaneously. Fear, thick and black, began to rise in his throat. It was wrong, all wrong.

“Sentinel parades them out like beasts, to give a speech, to excite the masses. Then they will be publically executed.”

Blurr looked at him in abject terror, vents flaring. Longarm continued to stare out the window. Shockwave gazed down into Blurr’s optics. The crowd’s collective voice rose and fell behind him, a wave of sound and rage.

 “They love him for it. They accept what he is doing completely. It is to this fate that Lord Megatron fell.”

His arms were so cold. Shockwave’s optic glowed darkly.

The screen panned out, showing the smiling faces of the Autobot citizens, polished brands and raised fists. They screamed their approval. The Guards were raising their weapons, aiming it at the bot’s unprotected laser core. It shuddered, knowing, anticipating. Blurr felt his own quake along with it, trying to deny what he was seeing, that this was reality. Sentinel raised his arm, preparing to give the signal.

“What are you doing!” something slammed against the wall. Longarm turned to face First Aid, Blurr still clutched tight to his breast.

“Get him away from there! He can’t be exposed to that kind of thing; it’s too much for his systems right now!” 

“I-I’m sorry,” Longarm stammered, innocent, “he wanted to see.”

First Aid gripped his shoulder steering him to the berth and practically ripping Blurr from his grasp. His touch was far less gentle than Longarm’s had been, and though his armor had settled well, it hurt. Blurr gasped silently. The movie on the vid screen in his room was still running. The crowd cheered.

“How could you do something so reckless with him!” Longarm allowed himself to be backed into a corner, hands raised defensively. Their tones dropped to below audibility. Blurr struggled, as best he could, mouth opening and closing, opening and closing. First Aid had been hiding things from him. Everyone had been hiding things from him. While he was trapped inside this room, Cybertron had gone mad. Something in the film exploded. The crowd cheered.

Longarm was nodding, apologizing. First Aid pointed him to the exit. Blurr wanted him to come back. He wanted to know the truth. His body began to seize. First Aid rushed over to him, calling for nurses. He pressed him palms hard against Blurr’s chest, pinning him to the berth. Sentinel was yelling, words filtering through the window in clumps.

“Supremacy…kind…”

“Nurse!”

“Autobots…we have…no more…”

“Nurse! He’s in another fit!”

“Vanquish…ending them…for the greater….that will be all…”

He could see Longarm in the doorway, watching. He wanted him to come back. Oh, Primus, no, he wanted him to come back. Three nurses rushed in, jostling the idle Prime with their shoulders, but still he remained.

“Give him the sedative, we need him down NOW!”

“Finally…gone…finally…”

 His spine bowed, jumping, and he felt the familiar stab of the code bar in the back of his cortex. His vision cut out immediately and his mouth fell open, the circuits sparking the final connection necessary, updates flashing across his processor, his new vocalizer coming into the world with jagged screech.

“ _Don’t leave!”_

The sound of fourteen laser rifles discharging echoed across the city.

The crowd cheered.

* * *

 

Blurr could not cease his weeping. All but First Aid and Perceptor were barred from the room. They stood in the corner and whispered to one another. First Aid gesticulated wildly at a data pad he had taken from one of the terminals lining the walls of the room. Perceptor hardly moved at all, but appeared to be winning the argument.

The window had been shut, and he could hear no more.

Good, he thought, good. Then, to solidify the reality of the event, he said it out loud.

“Good. Good, good, good, goodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgoodgood.”

First Aid rushed over and laid a hand to his head, trying to soothe him, and he screamed.

* * *

 

First Aid was so, so sorry. He had been keeping Blurr away from eustress because he thought it would be too much for him, but he had been wrong, so wrong, because that was what was keeping Blurr’s processor from initializing the final programming updates, telling his body to connect the last few hard lines. It had been vorns since the last successful spark transfer had been performed; they had forgotten what to expect. He would do whatever was necessary to make up for it in terms of assisting Blurr’s total recovery.

Blurr had immediately requested that his functionality would be restored, which made the medic very uncomfortable.

“Well,” he said, fingers knotting together, “well, that will take a while, but alright, okay.”

It had not taken very long at all to install the signal blocker that prevented him from moving in the first place. When Blurr brought that up, First Aid looked away, “It’s not that simple.”

Things were falling clearly into place inside Blurr’s mind.

“I want to watch the news instead of these movies now. I don’t know what’s being going on since I was found, or before then, and nobody has told me how long I was even offline for which I have to admit I find far more stressful to think about than it would be to actually know.”

“No,” said First Aid, “that’s still too much. If you overstress again, start purging like you did before, you can set yourself back by lunar cycles.”

“I’m fine!” the frustration he had carried with him the entire time began to well up again, spilling over in harsh, crackling bursts.

“There is nothing about my current condition that is being improved by my staying like this and I’d say if anything its only making me worse yes that’s right it is making me worse because instead of being able to move and think and feel by myself I’m being carted around like a bundle of old cables and I don’t like it, I can’t stand it, don’t you dare try to leave me in the dark like this!”

First Aid sighed, putting his hands on his hips, as though he was reasoning with a drunk.

“If you keep acting this way, we’ll have to put you in short term stasis again.”

Blurr stilled, cold with fear.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

Nonplussed, First Aid crossed his arms. Blurr looked away, upset.

“We’re trying to make you better, agent.”

* * *

 

Three cycles passed. Wheeljack came to see him, turned his head from side to side, had him speak at varying pitches and volumes. He left shortly after, when Blurr vehemently denied him permission to do another full body exam. He did not seem particularly worried by the latent anger in Blurr’s voice, optics smiling as if he knew something Blurr didn’t. He was just like First Aid, thought Blurr; he is lying to me too.

* * *

 

There was little noise in the street. There was none in the hallway. It was as if the entire world needed a break after the festivities. The execution. Blurr had not seen it with his own visual feed, but he believed it. He hated believing it, but he did.

* * *

 

“You did not tell them.”

It had been nearly a deca-cycle since he had seen Longarm. He looked tired. Blurr could not help but wonder if he actually was or not, if the false face conveyed a real emotion. Longarm had told him the truth when no one else had. But Longarm was, in himself, a lie told by Shockwave.

“No.”

Blurr had so much to say, but for once found himself unable to find the words. Longarm reached for his hand, as he often did, but hesitated at the last second. Blurr watched him, silent.

“May I touch you?” it was Shockwave’s voice. At least that was one thing he could accept as a truth without question. He looked down at their fingers, so close he could feel the warmth of Longarm’s energy signature.

“Why?”

His optics cut into Longarm’s like energon scalpels, clinical and dissecting. He watched as Longarm’s eyes dulled, something he had come to recognize as the emergence of his other form.

“Why?” the monster repeated, rolling the word over his vocalizer without the use of his mouth.

“You come in here again and again, talking to me, to sit with me, telling me all these things about what is happening outside that may or may not be true, holding my hand like this, and I don’t know what it is you want from me!” Blurr hissed the words out in a sharp whisper, as if the nurses outside could hear them, as if they had very little time to talk.

“Because I want to.”

“Do you think this will keep me from outing you? Do you think that by coming in here, acting as if nothing had ever happened between us, do you think that will keep me from getting you killed like all those others?”

“Is that what you believe I deserve?” he said, but Blurr heard the question implicit. Do you think you could live with yourself. He made a small noise, very small, a sound of agony.

“You tried to kill me,” he said, barely above a whisper, cracked with sorrow, “I hate you so much.”

Longarm pulled his hand away, started to stand.

“Don’t!” cried Blurr, still soft, still torn.

“Don’t leave. Please.”

He sat.

While it had already been evening when Longarm came in, it still surprised him how quickly darkness fell. The television was off, had been removed from the room conspicuously after Blurr’s request to watch the news. The window remained bolted down. They said nothing to each other for a long time.


	2. Interlude 1: Recognition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shockwave discovers another dimension to the complexity of life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First interlude. Enjoy!

Blurr was not an innocent when they’d first met. He had gone through academy twice; once in Iacon, for the Elite Guard, and before that on his home world of Velocitron, during which time he had been through several turbulent relationships, starting at an age so young it would normally have been considered, on Cybertron, as obscene. Velocitron was a different place, though; harsher and emptier. He had known the touch of many, and it had not always been pleasant.

Longarm wanted him. He wanted to show Blurr a softer love than he claimed to be used to experiencing. He wanted to take Blurr by the hand, lead him into the berth room, spread beneath his skilled touch, and keep him there afterwards. He wanted to watch Blurr in rapture.

It was a good thing. Though his mission was running as smoothly as could be expected, he had found it harder than he would have thought to assimilate himself into the day-to-day of being Longarm. No one suspected him of any misdeeds, but he was a loner and an oddity in the office and that made him more susceptible to blame, should it ever come down to that. Alone, he was not one to be trusted outside of strictly official matters. Having a friend, at the very least a friendly acquaintance, could only help in his deception. Even through this singularly strange and lonely bot, Longarm gained another dimension.

Things began to accelerate between them. He would observe the agent, standing stiff as a girder in his office, reporting his missions, and he could not keep himself from his desires. Blurr would see him staring and, perhaps not fully realizing the implications of his gaze, smile at him, and he would smile back, secretively, as though there were others there to watch. Blurr was a law abiding member of the force, would not break form until the entire recitation of his recent trip to the outer reaches had been completed. His adherence to the rules was matched only by his desire to uphold what they represented, unlike many of his compatriots. When they had gotten to know one another a little better, Longarm had carefully inserted this observation into one of their lunches, and Blurr had looked around the room with mild sorrow, and agreed.

Perhaps that was what had really captured his interest. Blurr was eager and excitable, but he had seen hardship and it showed. He was not totally disenchanted with the Autobot cause, but he was not gullible and he was not trusting. He questioned the validity of others kindness, even if he accepted it gracefully. It was a trait rare and special among his kind.

Shockwave wanted him. He wanted to show Blurr the realities of the world. He wanted to grip Blurr tightly, keep him inside his quarters, lay him open there, to be sequestered away, his alone. He wanted to watch Blurr in submission.

That was bad. Shockwave was no stranger to desire. Despite the rumors about him, he did experience the urge from time to time, and he was not above satisfying it, if the opportunity arouse. But this, this was something else entirely.

When he first realized that Blurr was important to him, it had been sudden. He had been in his own apartment, alone, in his true form. He had cleaned himself thusly and was now inspecting his work, carefully scrutinizing each dip in the metal for any further detritus that would make his extended time in another form uncomfortable, when he looked up into the reflective panel and caught himself wondering what Blurr would think if he ever saw him like this. Which was a foolish question to begin with, because if he ever discovered Shockwave’s identity, he would be killed immediately.

The question remained. For the rest of the evening, as Shockwave went about his work, a small part of his processor remained devoted to answering it, rolling it over again and again, until he realized the question was not what Blurr would think but why he wanted Blurr to think anything at all.

He wrote it off as a side effect of staying with Autobots too long. He tried to forget.

The next cycle, when he met Blurr for his break period, he found himself looking at Blurr’s face first and not his thighs, and the answer came to him so quickly that his speech stuttered, and his fingers stumbled across the cube he’d brought, as though the world beneath them was shaking.

He had grown fond of the Autobot.  
Immediately his processor sprang into action, trying to figure the best way to remove the distraction from his mind, from his mission. He thought to simply distance himself, until the emotion passed. So he began to send Blurr on more away missions, longer ones. Blurr would not touch Cybertronian land for stellar cycles at a time, but still he wanted him. Any attempt to stifle the feeling through willpower alone was near laughable.

The final option was also the swiftest. He would have to remove Blurr from the equation, permanently. Thinking it out had been simple enough, as he was so entrenched in the Autobot’s life, even more than the little thing knew, that each and every pattern of his daily schedule was a simple question of easily determinable variables.

He got as far as that. Waiting in the shadows outside Blurr’s apartment, he found himself considering the task he would face once inside, and while the image of Blurr’s face wrought with terror sent hot zaps down his spine, the thought of never having the begrudging pleasure of his company again was…

The experience left him shaken. For days, it did. He went about his business as usual, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He did not see Blurr and was glad of it. On the first morning after his failure he received another letter from the Magnus, requesting that he do something about the Earth team, and finally responded with an assignment. Hopefully he would be in control of his emotions by the time Blurr had finished there, and they could go back to their simple deception. During the off cycles he did not recharge, too determined to finish his calculations, his work, to discover a solution.

Then, like the folding open of a spark chamber, laying the soft, true nature of a being inside his palm, the answer came. If he could not kill Blurr, or remove the distraction from himself, he would simply have to indulge. There could be no half way here; when Blurr returned from his mission to Earth, he would have him, as Shockwave. It would be easy to simply extend his mission documents, claim to not have seen him, erase his report from the records. Blurr had no real friends outside of his work, no one to miss him. It would be so easy.

Of course, things did not work out that way, and when Blurr returned he was forced to take a different route.


	3. Act 2: Enemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blurr begins therapy and develops a temper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains the first of the sexual content.

The window was never opened again, at least for him. Before, he had hardly noticed it, most cycles, but now the absence was missed badly. The vid screen was wheeled back in, eventually, but the programs he was shown were now duller than ever, mainly old propaganda series from the time of PC Magnus. He loathed it, and he couldn’t help feeling that it was intended to teach him some sort of lesson, although his fear of being silenced again kept him from broaching the subject.

One thing that came of it, a good thing, was that Wheeljack and Perceptor stopped visiting. It made him a little uncomfortable to consider how relieved he was about that, but they had contributed nothing but confusion and occasional pain since his “accident” and that was the last thing he needed now. First Aid calmly informed him that it was because they had other engagements. He could not have cared less.

He began counting down the kliks until Longarm’s next visit, and hating himself for it. It was the only real source of stimulation he had, though, and while he did not trust him he did trust in what he knew about him. He trusted that Longarm would not make a move now if he hadn’t before, not without a reason.

* * *

 

“Since your new body has never really been moved, we will need to begin joint therapy to ensure everything is working properly.”

First Aid placed a data pad on the terminal nearest the berth and folded his hands neatly in front of his stomach.

“Wouldn’t the scans have already told you if anything inside me wasn’t properly aligned or going to break or something I mean isn’t that what those are for?”

The medic hummed a negative note, as if withholding rude commentary.

“Not necessarily. Besides, as you experienced before, with Wheeljack, do you remember that? When he came to test your physical dexterity in your new body, he found that you have latent charge buildup everywhere, and its numbing your sensory nodes.”

It disturbed Blurr to find that the seemingly impromptu visit had been not only permitted by First Aid but confirmed as well. He hissed a little bit of air between his dental grill.

“Alright so what does this therapy entail? I really hope it doesn’t involve more shock treatment because that was very unpleasant and I’d rather not go through that again anytime soon or ever actually.”

Tilting his helm to the side, First Aid looked down at him with the sad optics of someone having to break a hard truth to an innocent.

“Actually, agent, that’s about all it is. We need to disperse the excess energy and get the servos there used to movement again. It will also help us determine whether or not your internal lubrication system is working, or if your glitch affects your movement.”

Blurr looked away, still embarrassed by being spoken to about his timing program issue directly despite all that had happened here. Taking it as a sign of dismissal, First Aid huffed in exasperation.

“It’s going to have to happen, if you ever want to walk, let alone run, again.” Distracted, Blurr nodded. He wished the window was still open. Their voices echoed eerily without the extra noise as a buffer, and the air felt thick and stuffy.

“We’ll begin now, then.”

* * *

 

Longarm came in almost immediately after First Aid had left. Blurr did not bother to look over at him, still gritting his teeth as little aftershocks of pain ran through his wiring. There was sympathy in the older bot’s face.

“First Aid informs me that you have begun physical therapy.”

No response.

“It will be a long and arduous process, but the results will justify it, I believe.”

Blurr’s lip trembled.

“You put me here. This is all because of you. How can you just sit there and act like you’re sympathetic while you watch me suffer because of what you did.”

He wasn’t even angry. Longarm reached out to touch him, then thought better of it.

“I do not do this to taunt you,” he said, slowly, “I am attempting to help you.”

Finally he turned to look at him, optics wide as the moons of Pz-Zazz.

“How? How are you helping me by coming here? How are you making anything about this better for me other than just reminding me that I don’t have anyone to help me anymore, that I don’t have anything other than this and even the nurses here are lying to me, I don’t even know what to do with myself I’m just here!”

He was panting. Longarm hummed sadly.

“I’m trying to help you because I feel no malice towards you. I’ve told you before.”

“That doesn’t mean anything!” cried Blurr, and then he was forced to stop and shutter his optics as a wave of nausea overcame him. he wanted to break down again, as if that would help anything, simply because he was at a loss to express how deeply wounded he was. Somehow, though, he couldn’t, the result being a short, raw choking noise as he stared down at his lifeless hands, too far gone.

“Blurr,” said Shockwave, “it means everything.”

His fingers met Blurr’s, catching little bolts of static electricity that still lingered along his aching plating. Like a wave of rust, warm and weakening, his hand crept over Blurr’s, up to the wrist, enveloping his tiny digits until he could no longer see them behind the thick weight of Longarm’s palm. His fingers looked somehow sharper, more menacing, but the touch itself was kind.

“How can I trust you?” his head, still angled towards the berth, refusing to meet the false optics but unable to look away from the equally false servo.

“I suppose there is nothing I can give you but my word,” Shockwave said, gravely serious, “but I am not alone in being a liar. If you do not place your life within my hands, who will you go to in my stead?”

Blurr said nothing. Shockwave sighed, deep and melodious, and Longarm stood to leave. It wasn’t until he had reached the threshold that Blurr spoke.

“I can trust myself.”

* * *

 

They never asked him what had happened. He had been so wrapped up in his own troubles that at first it went unnoticed, but as time passed Blurr became increasingly aware that the medics and nurses came and went and despite his obvious clarity and newfound ability to speak he was still treated as though that was all there was to it. He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

One day, when the nurse was sitting idly, watching the vid screen with one optic and the news import on his data pad with the other, Blurr could not stifle the question any longer.

The nurse seemed…startled, which was unexpected.

“What do you mean?”

Tipping his helm forward, Blurr repeated himself.

“Why has no one been by to ask me about my injuries? I’ve been here for several lunar cycles already and none of you has shown the slightest amount of interest in what put me in this condition!”

Turning back to the movie, the nurse sniffed.

“You were found in a trash compactor. I think we can do the math.”

* * *

 

His leg lifted up, pressing back until the guard on his knee met his chest plate.

“Good, good,” Fist Aid crooned, holding it steady. Blurr leaned his head back to the wall, grimacing to try and stifle the little yelps of pain that built inside him with each pulse of his blooming nervous system. After three kliks, First Aid lowered his leg again, just as slowly as he’d raised it and almost as agonizing. Blurr’s chassis jittered, condensation forming as the building charge heated his frame. He’d probably have found it more enjoyable had it not hurt like the claws of the Destroyer in his circuitry.

“Are you finding this any easier now that we’ve been doing it for over a deca-cycle?”

Trying to catch his vents and cool down Blurr thought to himself, ten cycles? It had felt like a decivorn at least.

“Yes,” he mumbled, in between pants, “but it still hurts.”

“It’s going to,” said First Aid mildly, writing something down.

“How long do you think it’s going to be before they turn my motor functions back on I mean it feels like it’s been a while since you last mentioned it.”

“I suppose it has.”

First Aid turned away, tapping on one of the machines as if to look busy, but he was hardly trying. Observing the way his pale hands lingered over the buttons, Blurr began to wonder if he did, in fact, feel some form of remorse for what he was doing. A small part of his spark grew a little brighter at the prospect, and he turned away to hide an ugly smile.

* * *

 

First Aid still had to manually shift him into recharge. In the beginning it had just been a long expanse of black that ended in a stab of panic as he awoke, disoriented, but now he dreamed. The medic told him it was a side effect of his brain functions stabilizing, that it would mostly be memories and suchlike filtering back into place.

They were memories, to a certain extent, but not the same ones he had experienced previously, the little innocuous ones. They were often about academy, the Elite Guard and otherwise. More often than not they involved Longarm. He didn’t like those off cycles, the ones where he awoke shaking and hot, Longarm’s lips, his wide hands, burning ghostly paths across his body.

However, nothing was as bad as the nights he dreamt of the Decepticon, the Starscream clone, muzzled and chained, standing behind Sentinel like a caught animal on display. He watched himself watching it, Longarm holding him like that, the way its optics, that unnatural color, had bored into the cameras that filmed it. It would not have been so bad if the creature had met its demise with dignity, chin high and regal, like the villains in the old propaganda tapes First Aid played for him, but it hadn’t. Without the stasis cuffs, it would hardly have been able to stand. There was no bravery there.

Those were the times Blurr would wake early, darkness still cloaking the city like the warm shadow of Primus, and the true nature of his helplessness would be clear to him.

* * *

 

 When they came to perform the operation, he had been expecting something grander than three harried looking medics and a single nurse, one from his own ward no less. The way it had been built up had caused him to expect at least a change of room, but all they did was walk in, mumble to each other a little bit, then pop a sensor blocker into his neck and slip open his upper medical paneling.

One of them went to the top of the berth and pushed it away from the wall, standing behind it to hold his head between both hands. The other not currently examining his upper chest grabbed his legs. Blurr wasn’t going to ask, but the one at his head answered anyways.

“Sometimes there are seizures during or immediately after the process; you could hurt yourself.” The ‘or one of us’ went unsaid, but Blurr heard it loud and clear. Affirming he understood, he watched the hands rooting around his internal connection center nervously. It was incredibly disorienting to experience touch without the aid of sensors, phantom feelings being provided by his brain to fill the void.

The medic unraveled a spool of cord from his own medical port, located in his wrist. Blurr saw but did not feel the connection being made; four, then five plugs quickly inserted into a variety of his ports.

“Are we ready?” said the one plugging him, but not to Blurr, to the others. They each nodded silently, and he could just make out the tensing of their hands against his plating in preparation. Blurr clenched his jaw, really the only part of his body he could at least pretend to have some control over. Soon, though, that would not be the case. He tried to comfort himself with the thought.

“Alright,” said the plugged medic, “you’re going to feel a little pinch.”

His entire sensory net burst into life, as if it had been set on fire. Every strut in his body seemed to correct to straight, then overshoot, bowing until he was arched perfectly off the berth. His mouth opened, as if to scream, but all that came out was a high electrical whine, which eventually guttered out with the fizzing pop of a vocalizer shorting.

Then it was over. The medic pulled back, retracting his cords automatically with a little, bored sniff. The other two kept their hold on Blurr for several kliks, but he did not spasm anymore, completely worn out. Eventually one of them reached up, inserting the little code chip to reverse the sensory block into his neck.

“How are you feeling?”

Terrible. The room was spinning madly, and he felt like if he moved or spoke it would throw him down with it. The medics conferred with one another briefly.

“Agent,” said one of them, taking hold of his cheek and shining a light into his optics, “can you hear me?”

The light was too bright, and it hurt. He wanted he medic to stop. He tried to turn his head away, but the hand remained fastened to his face, holding him there.

“Agent?”

The torch loomed closer, until the white beam felt as if it were boring holes right through the glass and into his brain.

“Ahh!” he said, reaching up and grabbing it away from the medic.

“Stop it stop it stop it!”

The nurse smiled.

* * *

 

Blurr was elated. So much so, in fact, that he had to be threatened with stasis cuffs to keep him from continually trying to get off the berth and walk around every time the nurse left the room. He twitched and jumped, flexing his fingers, wiggling his toe stabilizers.

Longarm came in while he was on his back, legs raised straight up in the air and kicking in tight circles, as if he were powering a pedal generator. Blurr didn’t stop, but he nodded sharply, looking over with what almost passed as a smile. Longarm himself seemed unusually pleased, and the red optic of Shockwave glowed dimly.

“You’re looking quite good, agent Blurr.”

“Don’t say things like that,” Blurr huffed, spinning his wheels, “it makes you sound like a pervert, although I wouldn’t be surprised if you actually were one, as your type often tends to be.”

If he had meant to say it with malice, it did not translate that way. Longarm inconspicuously looked away from Blurr’s thighs.

“Regardless, I am pleased to see you recovering.”

“Recovering from what you did to me,” Blurr reminded him, still not sounding particularly upset. His fingers were clenched tight into the berth pad. Shockwave’s gaze lingered on them, perfect slim digits trembling with the first strain they had ever experienced. Blurr was so focused on his kicking that he almost didn’t notice when Longarm’s hand crept up to his own.

His head snapped to the side, startling Shockwave enough to make him jolt but not enough to make him remove the offending hand.

“What are you doing?”

Longarm’s mouth twitched up at the corners.

“I wanted to touch you.”

Blurr began kicking particularly hard. His optics narrowed slightly.

“So you keep saying. Yet I still fail to understand why you desire such a thing, or why you seem to assume I will reciprocate the feeling.”

Longarm smiled, and Shockwave’s optic glowed a little brighter. The sight used to stir Blurr’s insides something fierce, a nasty reminder of one of the last things he saw before his near termination, but it was so oddly normal now he hardly spared it a thought, other than to transfer his glare upwards to better meet the monster’s sight.

“Well, you haven’t tried to extract yourself from my hand.”

Blurr’s optics widened. In one quick jerk, he ripped his hand away and clutched it to his chest, simultaneously sitting up and tucking his legs away. He shot Shockwave a hurt look.

“I still forget I can move, that’s all.”

“Mmm.”

“I thought I told you before I didn’t want you touching me anyways.”

“Mmm.”

“You didn’t answer my first question anyway which I still expect a response to by the way.”

Longarm’s head tilted to the side, a distantly pleasant expression crawling across his face. Blurr felt he could almost see the white slit of Shockwave’s central focus point in his optic.

“Oh, Blurr, isn’t it obvious?”

Shaken, Blurr could not respond immediately. Longarm reached for him again and he pulled away.

“No…”

The light returned to Longarm’s optics. He sighed, looking down at his knees.

“I understand. I’ll leave.”

“No!” Blurr said again, filled with a sudden urgency, “No, I mean I don’t think it obvious, I don’t think it’s obvious at all and I really, I, I want to know what you mean by that!”

Longarm lunged forward, grabbing Blurr’s hands and holding them tightly between his thick servos, and Blurr let him, knowing full well he could have been halfway down the hall in the time it took the bot to stand from his chair. He looked Blurr right in the face, optics to optic, his real optic. Wound tight with anticipation, Blurr watched, lips parting slightly as he sucked air down his vents.

“Blurr,” he said again, soft enough that for a moment Blurr thought he’d imagined it.

“You expressed a desire for me once, and I turned you away because I knew what came to pass would always be the eventual outcome of our union. But things did not play out the way I had foreseen, and now we are in a position I had calculated only a 98.95% chance of occurring and you know the truth about me.”

Blurr leaned closer, fingers unconsciously curling around the sides of Longarm’s palms as he listened.

“You know who I am and what I have done. What I may continue to do.”

He could feel the deep, heavy breath on his face. How had he never noticed before the cold quality of the air Longarm produced?

“I do not believe in luck or fate, Blurr, but I feel I must say that I-”

“It’s time to fuel up, agent!”

Longarm pulled back into a casual sitting position so quickly that, had he been with any other bot it would have seemed he hadn’t moved at all. Blurr caught all the subtle intricacies of his motion though, watched the light fade from Shockwave’s optic and was almost saddened by it. He folded his hands back neatly in his lap as the nurse backed through the door, doing his best to keep the energon dispenser cart steady. When he reached the center of the room he turned, then spilled some of the liquid anyways when he saw Longarm.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were visiting, Longarm Prime, sir!”

With a smile that came more forced than usual, Longarm rose and greeted the nurse, patting him on the shoulder calmingly.

“It’s alright, I was just going.”

He was getting very tired of the Decepticon leaving him hanging like this every time they were interrupted. Blurr’s energon tasted particularly bitter, and if the nurse hadn’t waited around to ensure he finished it he would have spat it out the window.

* * *

 

There had been one other time he had kissed Longarm. It had been five stellar cycles since the first time, in his apartment, and they had been drifting apart slowly ever since. He didn’t really know what compelled him to do it, because it was not a particularly romantic moment, standing in Longarm’s office as his boss read through a data slide he’d just turned in, but the fact still stood that he did.

Perhaps it was _because_ of the innocent situation. It was, after all, in moments like this he had initially fallen for the bot. One klik he was standing with his servos taught in a customary salute, the next they were gripping the edge of the desk, propelling him forward until he could reach the data file, pull it from the shocked Longarm’s hands, and wrap in a disorganized pile around his thick neck as their lips crashed together. He dug his fingers in tightly to the base of the kibble on Longarm’s back, expecting to be thrown away, but when hands found his waist it was not to repulse but to pull closer, tighter against that lovely round body.

Blurr melted, sagging forward as something akin to relief washed over him. He was on his knees, probably scuffing the tidy surface of Longarm’s desk, legs awkwardly bent to the sides to accommodate his wheels, but he could not care less because Longarm’s arms were stretching to wrap around him twice over, hands rubbing his back plate in soothing circles, and the Prime was kissing him back.

They hardly parted for several kliks, and when they did it was only to shift their position slightly, searching for the comfortable mid-plane between Longarm’s mouth guard and Blurr’s sharp chin. Each time Blurr was filled with brief panic, that this would be it, the moment like their first intimate encounter, when Longarm would stop him, look at him again with that expression of dirty grief.

When they did finally come apart, Longarm kept his hold tight, kissing up the side of Blurr’s cheek, across his nasal ridge.

A great weight fell away from Blurr, the memories of those cold evenings spent in silence together as the finished up their work, desiring the closeness they had once shared but too afraid of the pain that came with it fading quickly from his hard drive. The sense of freedom built inside him until it bubbled over in a giddy laugh, and he brought his hands up to cup Longarm’s face, kissing him again and again and again.

Then he was sliding forward off the desk, both being pulled and of his own volition, into Longarm’s lap, legs spread wide to accommodate his girth. He was too tall to comfortably reach Longarm’s lips at this angle, but his superior spared the issue no mind and immediately began mouthing his neck, hands sinking lower on Blurr’s back until they cupped his aft boldly. Blurr practically squealed with delight, pawing at Longarm’s chest with dumb joy.

“Oh sir, oh Longarm Prime sir, oh, this is more than I’d ever have asked of you, I can’t believe it, I can’t believe it, I’m so happy sir I’m really, really happy…”

“Shh…” said Longarm, “Cliffjumper will hear you.” They both knew that wasn’t true at all, that the walls of this office were more reinforced and carefully monitored for bugs than Ultra Magnus’s chambers, but he understood the paranoia and, while unable to hold his glossa completely, at least managed to bring the volume down to a breathy whisper.

Blurr ground his hips against Longarm’s, feeling it wasn’t too much in light of their long, long courtship. Unfortunately it proved the opposite.

“Blurr.” Longarm pulled away. His arms began to unwind, until only his hands remained clasped on Blurr’s slim hips.

“No!” Blurr whispered, “No no no no no! Not now, please, I’m sorry we can just keep kissing please, please Longarm…”

He hunkered over, wrapping his arms tight around Longarm’s waist, pressed his helm into his chin, legs locking on the chair. He could feel the hands on his person tighten, Longarm’s breath on his crest.

“Sir,” he implored.

In an unexpected show of strength, Longarm pried his arms away, pushing him off and back on to the desk. Blurr reached for him again, desperate.

“Blurr, I cannot interface with you now, like this.” He leaned in as if to kiss his agent again, but instead rested their foreheads together, the red bulb in the center of his own bumping neatly between Blurr’s optics.

“I cannot give you false hope that we can be.”

Squirming, Blurr made a high, strained noise, as if the life were being crushed out of him.

“Please,” he whined, “just this once.”

“Blurr…”

“Longarm, _please_.”

Blurr spread his legs wider and retracted his interface panel. Longarm could not help but look. A small hiss of breath, air cold against his valve, dark and neat between his thighs.

“We can do it any way you want, I’ll be so good for you, I will be.”

Tension wound Longarm’s body tight, a spring waiting to be sprung. His thumbs edged down Blurr’s thighs. They seemed to shake as one.

“This cannot happen again,” said Longarm, even as he dove between Blurr’s knees, “do you understand that, agent?”

Blurr lifted his legs obligingly, a smile already cracked across his lips, manic and wanting.

“Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes sir yes!”

Longarm buried his face in the fork of Blurr’s legs, mouthing his valve with the blunt roughness of someone both inexperienced and violently eager. Stifling an absolute howl, Blurr brought both hands to his face and clawed at it, not knowing what to do with himself. The panic and desire made his circuitry burn.

Two fingers pushed inside him along with Longarm’s glossa, almost too much to handle. He shrieked, shoving his servos in his mouth to muffle the noise, a little trickle of oral solvent bubbling past them and down his chin. Longarm nipped his external sensory node, then shoved in to suck on it harshly. Blurr felt the world turning beneath them, the sky swirling above, everything in perfect alignment with this perfect moment, and he clasped his hands over his optics as pleads and praise spilled from his mouth and he prayed with every molecule of his being that it wouldn’t end.

Of course, it did. Naught but moment later, his calipers clamped around Longarm’s fingers, valve rippling as a burst of lubricant signaled his release. Longarm, bless his spark, remained firmly attached to his equipment, pushing him through it until the last quiver shook through his form, relaxing and releasing. Then it was over. Longarm stood, retrieving a rag from inside his desk and wiping his face and fingers clean. Blurr sat in a puddle of his own making and wished he were offline.

The rag was offered to him, but he couldn’t bring himself to take it, staring dully at the hand that held it.

“Blurr,” said Longarm, “oh, Blurr.”

He lifted Blurr’s thighs from the desk and began to clean him himself. It felt wrong, but still he couldn’t move to stop it. Outside the window, millions of lights winked at them knowingly.

When he was done Longarm kissed him again, on the forehead, chastely.

“I’m sorry.”

Blurr looked at him, surprised.

“What?”

“I’m sorry it has to be this way, but it does.” He turned to drop the rag into the slot in his wall leading to the incinerator. Licking his lips, Blurr shifted.

“What if we didn’t work together?” Longarm’s shoulder sagged, a definitive ‘no’ already forming on his face, but the idea had caught Blurr and he could not, would not stop himself.

“I could, I could quit here and get a courier job in the city, I wouldn’t mind much and I have a lot saved up, it’s not like I’d be leeching off you, I could keep the apartment clean for you and do the other chores and you could focus on work and it would be good, alright, we could make it work…”

“Quit your job, Blurr?” Longarm did not touch him again, but he could tell he wanted to.

“Is that what you really want?”

Blurr looked at him, young and beautiful.

“More than anything.”

But even then Longarm turned away, and for all his speed Blurr realized he had been left behind.

* * *

 

Sentinel Magnus looked down at him with what could only be described as poorly disguised contempt. He had two body guards with him, young, pretty things, who stood tight lipped and anxious just a few paces back, by the door.

“Your sacrifice will not be forgotten…” Sentinel droned, hands waving lazily about his waist like dying Insecticons. Blurr watched them, mesmerized by the clearly practiced motions, the dead look in the temporary Magnus’s optics. He was almost floored by how much he loathed the bot, to the point that it had doubled in on itself and become humorous. Still, he waited patiently.

“Cybertron thanks you for your service, agent…” he glanced down at a data pad one of the guards held towards him urgently, “…Blurr.”

That seemed to be the end of it. Sentinel was looking at him expectantly, but Blurr waited a few nano-kliks before speaking, underwhelmed.

“I’ve been here for eight lunar cycles.”

Sentinel looked a little miffed that he wasn’t instantly receiving gratitude for his thrilling speech.

“Yes? And?”

“I’m just surprised it’s taken you so long to make an appearance I mean I won’t say I’m ungrateful that the Magnus himself came to my humble berth side but doesn’t it feel a little late to you?”

He made no effort to tone down his sarcasm and Sentinel recoiled in shock. The twins eyed each other silently.

“Excuse me?”

Normally Blurr would have been horrified by the level of unrepentant rage he was allowing himself to actively express, but there was no longer any room for shame in his life.

“If coming to see me was such a bother for you, such an afterthought that it took you nearly a stellar cycle to come, when I’m almost at the end of my forced stay anyways, why would you even bother coming all? Was this visit supposed to serve any purpose other than making me feel worse about what happened to me? and even after all this you still haven’t made any attempts to find out who did this, or where they are now, or why, Primus, what have you been doing all this time other than murdering prisoners of war!”

The self-proclaimed Magnus’s face was slowly distorting from sneer to snarl. He tried to mask it, turning away and inspecting his servos, always the bigger bot.

“Well, you know, being the Magnus of all of Cybertron isn’t exactly the easiest job,” said Sentinel, picking a bit of grit from his knuckles. Blurr bristled, straightening, his hands forming loose fists against the rubber berth pad, trembling.

“You ordered for them to keep me here and all you have to say for it is that you were too busy to help me? That I have been being kept here, in the dark, alone, because of your own selfishness and that it should bother me because I’m just,” his voice cut off, hyperventilating, and he almost laughed because nothing was getting through, Sentinel wasn’t even looking at him.

“Agent Bore,” he drawled, the pinnacle of patience in the face of idiocy, “I know you think that Cybertron spins around your axis but some bots have real priorities.”

It was too much. Blurr’s vision was pixilating at the edges, the way it had back when he'd first woken up, and everything was tilting, whirling in a mad centrifuge.

“No one- no one has even asked me why I’m here. How would you know what happened to me was a ‘sacrifice’ if you don’t even know how it happened!”

“Details.” Sentinel waved his hand dismissively. “Besides, under my guidance, we’re in an era of civil unity stronger than ever before. It’s almost as if your mission…” his optics widened in mock surprise, “…didn’t matter at all!” his fingertips burst away from his palms like small fireworks.

“How can you say that!” cried Blurr, pushing himself forward until his pede tips grazed the floor.

“How can you stand there and tell me things like this? You’re the Magnus, you are the light of the people, and you’re just going to tell me that my sacrifice didn’t matter?” He stood, unsteady and broken, pushing a finger into Sentinel’s chest. Jetstorm and Jetfire started, as if expecting him to attack, looking nervously between the two.

“You know what, I don’t even believe what you said, that you forgot about me, that you were too busy to think about your fallen soldier because you have far too big of an ego for that, you, you sentient pile of garbage!” He swayed dangerously and Sentinel, looking duly appalled for once, stepped back a pace. He opened his mouth as if to speak but Blurr cut him off again.

“I know why you kept me here, I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner, I know why now and there’s nothing you can do about it!” His legs finally gave out, and he fell forward, grabbing at Sentinel’s chest to keep himself from collapsing to the floor. Incensed, Sentinel grasped his wrists in a punishing grip, until the metal squealed. Blurr thrashed weakly like a caught turbofox.

“It’s because you never caught who did it to me, isn’t it!” he shouted, kicking at Jetstorm, who had reached a tentative hand out to help restrain him. “It’s because if word got out that a Decepticon had attacked and killed an Autobot right here on Cybertronian metal and you never found out how or who, it would undermine your supposed _reputation_ , wouldn’t it? Because everyone would know that you were a failure, that you don’t know what you’re doing, that Wasp wasn’t the traitor at all!”

Sentinel’s face changed, slowly, his anger turning into something much more sinister. He released his hold on Blurr, who fell to the floor in a heap, gasping as his internal systems began to overheat.

“You have no proof of that, soldier.” It was not a tone Blurr had ever heard him use before. He dug his servos into the tile and tried to get ahold of himself, panicking as warning after warning crossed his processor, too many, making his brain ache.

“You want we should be…arresting him?” Jetfire was clearly troubled. The twins were not used to internal affairs. Blurr sobbed, choking on his own oral solvent.

“No,” said Sentinel, “I don’t think that will be necessary.” He pushed the tip of his boot into Blurr’s chin, tilting his helm upwards so he could look him right in the optics.

“Will it?”

Blurr could hardly see them looking down at him. He tried to respond, but all that left his mouth was a broken whine. He felt like he was going to purge, and struggled not to, remembering, as if it held any relevance, Perceptor’s warning that it could tear his internal lining out. Had that really been over a lunar cycle ago? He couldn’t remember.

Sentinel was almost disgusted by the open display of weakness. No wonder this bot had gotten himself slagged. Letting Blurr’s head drop, he clicked his heels together, not sparing him another look as he made his way to the door. He could feel Jetfire and Jetstorm lingering behind, but they’d forget about it soon anyways. Bumpkins from the outer reaches like them barely had enough processing power to remember their own designations.

“You see,” he crowed, wrapping an arm around each of their shoulders to keep them walking, “that’s the kind of dissonance we have to deal with here.”

* * *

 

“You should not have done that.”

First Aid was livid, a look Blurr had never seen on him before and had honestly doubted he even possessed the programming for.

“I don’t see why not,” Blurr spat, echoes of a sob still heavy in his voice.

Rounding on him suddenly, First Aid shook a finger at Blurr, as if trying to focus all his rage on the single digit, a scope with which to aim his aggression.

“Why do you think I’ve been-UHH!” he turned away again, throwing him hands into the air. Blurr was singularly nonplussed.

“Are you going to punish me for it by throwing a fit in my room or are you just going to take away my freedom to move again?”

He’d expected further retaliation, but First Aid merely slumped in defeat, exhaling loudly like a pump decompressing.

“You’re not here to be punished, agent. You’re here to be healed.”

Blurr looked over to the window, still firmly shut.

“Is there a difference?”

First Aid left the room.

* * *

 

“The nurses tell me you got into some sort of altercation with Sentinel?”

Longarm was barely through the door. He sounded almost breathless, as if he were actually concerned. Blurr wished he would be, even knowing how stupid that was. He sat up straighter, bracing his arms against the berth to address his visitor.

“He’s been keeping me here,” he forced out, vocalizer still raw with static, “to cover his own tailpipe, and I called him out on it.”

Moving directly to his side, Longarm leaned in close, interested.

“Because they never caught you. They don’t want word getting out that they are failures and liars and that agents were hurt because of someone they never managed to deal with and I’m just, I’m just, I’m just…”

An arm wrapped gently around his shoulder, and he let himself be pulled close, not even thinking about the implications, wrapped up in his grief.

“I’m just so _angry_.”

“I know,” said Shockwave, another of Longarm’s hands straying to Blurr’s waist, and he realized that they were hugging but couldn’t find it in himself to be repulsed. He wrapped his own arms around his superior’s neck and pressed his face into that broad chest, shaking with the force of his emotion. Shockwave held him, carefully, breath falling cool on his neck.

He didn’t want to be angry anymore. He was so, so tired. He told Shockwave this and the Decepticon sighed, a deep, purring noise against his helm.

“I know.”

“I’m not perfect, I know I’m not, but I’ve never done anything wrong enough to warrant this I mean it’s completely unnecessary I don’t understand what I’m, what I’m being punished for, I don’t understand and it’s not fair.”

“I know,” Shockwave repeated, and there was true conviction in his voice. Blurr wrapped himself in it, wallowing in the comfort of those few syllables as if they were all he had in this world. The arms around his waist tightened and he wheezed, not in pain but in desperation, a little anguished laugh.

“Why did it have to be you?” he said, fingers digging sharply into Longarm’s back, “I could hate anyone but you.”

“I know.”

Blurr whipped his head to the side and kissed Longarm’s mouth, hard. The metal was just as cold and perfect as he remembered, and a sob slipped out between their lips. He had expected Shockwave to pull them apart again, to remind him why it couldn’t be in the first place, but instead he found the body against his moving, pushing them closer, a glossa damp and warm against his.

When they finally came away from it, Blurr was shaking.

“Wh…” he tried to speak but the words caught in his throat.

“Blurr,” said Shockwave, so, so beautifully, “I have told you before, not everything I was to you then was a lie.”

He wanted to believe it. Oh Primus he wanted to believe it.

“I am…fond of you, Blurr. Very much so.” He brought a hand up to cup Blurr’s cheek, and Blurr let himself fall into the touch. For a moment the urge to just let himself go was near insurmountable, nature itself forcing them together. Blurr lowered his head, shuttering his optics and bringing a hand up to grasp weakly at Longarm’s wrist, not pushing away or pulling closer, simply resting there.

“I want to get out of here.”

“And so you will.”

* * *

 

The off cycle was longer than any that came before. Blurr curled up on his side, a position he had often preferred before his forced immobility, covering his face with his hands. Occasionally, when he grew tired, his fingers would slip and the twinkling lights outside out pierce between them, waking him every time and forcing him to shift, to block them out.

Though the colors and sizes were widely varied, he couldn’t shake the awful feeling that they were watching him, pinprick optics in the sky outside. He was a traitor now, betraying his kind by letting this monster roam free. By kissing it, letting it kiss him back. An Elite Guard agent assisting a Decepticon in assimilating to their society. He wrapped his arms around himself, heated and miserable, craning his neck away, unable to meet their lifeless gaze.

He had tried rolling to the other side, but then he was met by the winking bulbs in the monitors around him, wide and red, and that was worse.

* * *

 

“We can’t allow you to go home yet! This is a very important time in your recovery. Look, I’m just trying to… no, actually look at me, agent, I need to know you are understanding my point! We can’t allow you to go home yet because your motor functions are still calibrating. You can barely walk! Don’t- don’t try to argue with me on that, I’d know better than anyone. And don’t think I haven’t seen you trying to practice when the nurse leaves the room.

“Your options are either to remain here until you’ve been deemed stable enough to care for yourself –which includes a very strict schedule of follow up visits, don’t forget that- or you can enter an assisted living program.

“What?

“Oh, that means you’ll be able to live elsewhere but with a medical or physical aid there at all times to ensure you heal properly, don’t get yourself into trouble, etcetera. Don’t make that face, I know you aren’t a newspark but your body is still new and frankly as time goes on you’ve been acting more and more like one anyhow. And that fight you got into with the Magnus…

“Yes, I know, you’ve told me before.

“Now, if you are interested in the assisted living program, I’ll just wrangle up a list of the available bots in the area. Well, I’m going to do it even if you’re not. I think it’ll be better for you. We all do. It’s not been easy housing you, you know. I know I shouldn’t say things like this to a patient but you, you’ve been quite the trial! Yes I mean that. I know this kind of thing is never easy, not on anyone but there are certainly bots out there who have handled it with more grace than you. I’m not trying to be mean I just think maybe you should try to understand things from my point of…

“Alright, I’m just bringing it up now. A lot of irregulars on the list this cycle, that’s odd. Ah...hm! Well here’s a bit of unexpectedly good news!”

* * *

 

“How did you get yourself on the list?”

Even Longarm’s most secretive smile could not disguise his pride.

“The Autobot security systems are weak at best. Frankly it took less effort than finishing my file work for the evening did.”

Blurr had his ankles crossed, reclined in the berth but still semi-upright and completely alert. It was this kind of casual readiness that Shockwave found incredibly attractive about him, and he had no shame in allowing himself to stare. If Blurr was self-conscious about the barely concealed ogling, he didn’t show it.

“Actually, sir, that’s not what I meant. I was referring to the fact that legally you cannot be an assisted living agent if you have a full time job and on top of that since when have you had medical qualifications I don’t recall you ever training for that and you know I would remember I’ve been here longer than you.”

Longarm traced a finger up Blurr’s arm and he shook him off like an annoying pest, gesturing wildly while he spoke. But he was not uncomfortable. It was good, so good to see him like this, talking and moving and _knowing_.

“I do qualify if I have enough saved up personal time, which you know I do. As of tomorrow I will officially be off work, with Cliffjumper as my replacement. My medical references are real, they are just all…off site.”

“Cliffjumper?” Blurr screwed up his nasal ridge.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea I mean I know he is qualified and all that but there’s a reason he was kept out of the Guard.”

Longarm reached up to pet him again and this time Blurr allowed it.

“You and I both know there will be no unexpected criminal activity during the time he’s the acting Prime. At least, nothing on the level that would concern him. He already goes through my filing; he is perfectly suited for the job.”

He lifted Blurr’s hand and kissed the knuckles one by one. His lips always seemed so blunt and disorganized, like they didn’t exactly know how to move. Blurr supposed they didn’t. He squirmed a bit as they made their way to his wrist, up his arm.

“What about your ‘off-site’ medical papers? How are they going to verify that? How did they verify that, actually, should be the question, because now that I think about it, it would already have to have been verified to be accepted in the first place and even if they were verified that if they call back to check up or something?”

Longarm’s hand was creeping around his waist. Without waiting for an answer, Blurr lunged forward and kissed his superior, scooting closer and closer to the edge of the berth. It was passionate but without sensuality, and when they parted, Blurr was not sure which set of optics he should gaze into.

“As I said, Autobot security systems are not well constructed. They will consistently check out, regardless of how in depth they are investigated, though I doubt we have much worry of that to begin with.”

Blurr rested his head on Longarm’s shoulder.

“Why am I doing this?”

A heavy hand stroked soothingly down his spinal strut.

“That I cannot answer.” Their fingers threaded together, and Longarm brought them to his face to kiss again.

“I am glad you are.”

* * *

 

He had expected the first shower in his new body to feel like ecstasy, but it burned. A nurse watched him calmly, waiting with a thin drying cloth folded between his palms. Towards the back of the room, Longarm was turned politely away, speaking to First Aid in low tones. They were finalizing the forms for his transfer to the Prime’s care, he knew, and every so often he’d catch First Aid glancing up at him with an expression even more vague than usual.

The cleaning solvent was only at a little below a hundred degrees, hardly warm enough to be noticeable under normal circumstances, but now it felt molten against his armor. Still, he raised his face up into the stream, arms above his head, reveling in the sensation. Every joint ached anew, the grease and grime that had built up even as he lay suddenly painfully obvious to him. He dug the scrubber between his seams as though it would save his very spark.

Finally they had to tell him to finish up, voices tame and polite. He was free now. They could no longer treat him like an invalid. The buffing was quick and efficient, but his fresh finish glowed even in the clinical light of the basement wash rack. Longarm was almost hesitant to touch him. When he spoke to First Aid, his chin was held high.

“That’s it. You’re ready to go.”

“I know.”

The little curl of his lips told all.


	4. Interlude 2: Desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shockwave questions his choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter is EXTREMELY violent.

Shockwave watched the Autobot pinned beneath his claw squirm. He had already removed the thing’s vocalizer, near the start of their play, but it pleased him to see his mouth open and close yet, as if the force of will alone could bring words to his lips.

“Oh little thing,” he crooned, stroking a claw, thick with congealed energon, down the bot’s shattered shoulder, “if we could all have what we wished for, believe me, I would not have chosen you.”

A mangled leg swung up to feebly kick at his chest, leaving little pink trails across his true insignia. Shockwave reached down absently and snapped the rest of the calf off, leaving only up to the knee intact. Another fit of thrashing, agony surely coursing through the tiny frame, his blue finish heaving upwards with the force of exhalation as sparks showered from his throat.

Blue. The true reason Shockwave had targeted him. Certainly, this alone was not the reason he stalked the streets, these long evenings painted brilliant by the fuels of his prey. Part of Shockwave’s mission here was to orchestrate a reign of discord throughout the city, hopefully the core of Autobot society itself. These seemingly random acts of violence, these murders and mutilations, they were all part of his carefully plotted scheme; each individual involved a player on the board which he moved, slowly, towards his goal.

However, it did not hurt to indulge certain personal desires.

 This time his victim had made himself all too easy to catch, alone, inebriated, in one of the less cultured sides of the market district. Perhaps, Shockwave thought, he had considered himself protected, recalling the short range laser pistol the bot had produced from his subspace. He had certainly sobered fast when the voice that called him into the side street grew and grew and grew into a monster.

There were many like him in the run down alleys, that cycle and every other, but Shockwave had found his choice made for him when the bot had paused beneath a street light to swig his cheap nightmare-fuel, and the electric blue sheen of his paint made itself clear. The exact shade of his dear agent’s.

Ah, Blurr. Today he had come into Longarm’s office, all in a tizzy because one of the bots in filing refused to properly put in his reports and could not seem to understand his speech enough to remedy the problem, although Blurr believed this to be a front intended to slight him. Perhaps it was. Though he did not recognize the secretary’s designation, it would be easy enough to locate him. He would have to look into that.

As beautiful in passion as he was in silence, Blurr had paced and gestured, Longarm assuming his position of confidante with simple grace. Occasionally the agent would cease his circling to perch on the edge of the tall desk between them, but would not remain there long and soon go back to his wandering. Shockwave did not mind at all, as the shifting of Blurr’s aft against the polished alloy was equally pleasurable to the strong glide of his thighs, the dip of his hips in motion.

The bot he had now shared none of these traits with Blurr. Only their coloration made them remotely similar, but as Shockwave had so recently reminded him, beggars cannot be choosers. The Autobot was clawing at the floor, perhaps trying to crawl away but unable to gain enough traction in the thick puddle he sat in to make much headway. Shockwave hummed disapprovingly.

“Now, now,” he said, scooping one hand beneath the bot’s aft to angle its pelvis upwards, “I’m not done with you yet.”

Terror made it shake and retch. He watched a dull yellow foam bubble up between its torn lips, the rest of his meal already spilled long before they’d reached this point in their session. Cooing, he stroked the spittle away, other claws already skittering around the bots interface hardware. He had watched Blurr turn his tanks, once, in a medical tent after the agent had returned from another of his long missions away. The planet he had been on had been largely uninhabited but contained quite a few species of creatures that, as they quickly discovered, were quite capable of producing a variety of nanite based venoms to highly undesirable effect. For once Shockwave had been glad of Perceptor’s wealth of knowledge, because while the Decepticons had no qualms with organic life and kept a rather large scientific wing open to the various maladies they produced, Autobots were not, and for a brief while he had feared he would be forced to feign medical ignorance while the object of his affections faded at the hands of its affliction.

In retrospect, though, he was able to revel in the memory of Blurr’s trembling back as he soothed him, hot with sickness. Blurr’s little engines were stuck on full throttle, driving the poor thing to distraction as he was laid low by the infection. Though Longarm’s weak sensors would detect nothing, Shockwave was all too aware of the way Blurr’s spark thrummed inside his chest, the few flimsy layers of armor outside doing nothing to hide its desperate contractions.

Caught up in the vision, Shockwave dug a claw into the bot’s hip seam, tearing off his interface panel and a large portion of the protective covering on his left inner thigh. The internal mechanics of his leg, working in smooth order as he jerked to escape Shockwave’s clutch, made the Decepticon sigh wistfully. He traced around its spike cover, small panels inside the seams of his servo sliding back to allow cords, like fingers on their own, spring forth, plunging neatly into the ports on his legs, his interface hardware. He pumped a heavy dosage of charge into the bot’s spike and was almost instantly gratified by its pressurization, springing up between the petals of its housing cheerfully.

The bot beneath him clawed at his own face, vents ragged and painful to hear. Crooking a claw around the blunt little spike Shockwave stroked it gently a few times. He was sure it brought the bot no pleasure, but in his mind Blurr spread his thighs wider, gasping in reverent ecstasy. Though the captured Autobot was leaking fluids fast, Shockwave still managed, though hardline connection and external stimulation alike, to coax a few drops of unprocessed transfluid out of the tip before sitting back again, contemplating the sight before him. The Autobot’s face was screwed up in distress, marks of his own doing marring down his cheeks.

“You are very ugly,” Shockwave stated, observing him roll to his side before pinning him back again with a single claw.

“Really, had the night not been so short, I would have chosen another. You simply do not have good luck, do you?” His spike bobbed as he writhed, and Shockwave sent another burst of charge through him just to watch him buck.

“I suppose anyone in that particular area does not have much luck at anything, though.”

His claw curled around the spike again, more firmly than before.   

“We won’t be needing this.”

Normally he would have waited the feel the metal buckle, slow and loud, just to watch the realization dawn in his victim’s optics, but this one was too far gone, mind already addled by the drink before Shockwave had even laid a servo on him. Now he made quick work of it and simply ripped the spike off in a clean arc. The bot tried to scream again, body bowing in a perfect semi-circle and holding the position until the agony settled again.

How Blurr would have screeched at that. Of course, he would never perform the act so crudely with him, no. There would have been surgical tools, a clean work station, restraints. His agent would tremble in his bonds, not understanding until it was too late. How many times had Shockwave imagined the clean bump of a spikeless pelvic span, the way Blurr would kneel, cowed without those protocols, all his desire focused on the specific pleasures Shockwave could give him.

  _And how they would be given!_

The valve on his surrogate captive was clean and surprisingly little used. Unfortunately it was coded to match the brittle dun secondary color of the bot, breaking the fantasy in its unimpressive glory. Shockwave’s pupil narrowed to a sliver.

“Useless,” he muttered, nonetheless preparing to use.

“I see no point in wasting time on this wretched thing.”

His spike rose from between his thighs, a weapon in the dark. This pale imitation, junkie from the streets, he was no true substitute. With the same callous roughness he had showed the others before, Shockwave stayed true to his word and wasted little time at all with lining himself up, tearing inside. The bot spat energon. Shockwave felt his spike shatter the pelvic housing, piercing through the rim of the Autobot’s gestation tank easily, and was unusually, spitefully pleased.

Planting one servo on the ground, he firmly grasped the now complacent body with the other, immediately launching into a quick, efficient pattern of thrusts. He had no desire to salvage the fantasy anymore; the frag was hardly worth the effort it would take to make this wreck seem attractive. Off-lining his optic, he allowed himself to focus on nothing more than achieving swift overload.  

It came without satisfaction, as it had many times of late. As the last of his transfluid spat out between them, Shockwave began eyeing the shell for easy points to begin his dissection. They body would be divided up into parts and then separately destroyed. Only a few would be left to be found, perhaps the hand. He doubted anyone would miss a bot with a face like this one.

He sat back on haunches and sighed the sigh of one too often denied pleasure to miss it much. Without the fantasy, he cared little for the act. So often now was it spoiled for him that he was beginning to consider simply murdering the foolish creatures and letting it be what as it was. Ah, but he was tempted, so often and so sorely throughout his days among the Guard. Blurr wanted him, and though he could not allow himself to openly reciprocate, it made things that much harder. The agent was young and warm and carried the scent of one who had seen many lovers. There was little he could do to stem his desire.

Unfortunately, pleasure and work could not coincide here. The Autobot was gasping in his last ventilations of air. Wound up in his own troubles, Shockwave detachedly reached forward and popped the bots head off. 


	5. Act 3: Admission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blurr attempts to better understand his situation and, unfortunately, succeeds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating to fill things out as I finish up requests. Enjoy~!

They recharged in the same room, but not together. Shockwave had immediately offered him the berth, to which Blurr had replied with false innocence, hopeful and bemused simultaneously. The answer was, however, not exactly what he had been hoping for. Now, as he lay, he watched Shockwave’s frame, heavy in its true nature, stiff and silent in repose, upright against the wall across the room. Most bots produced some level of noise or movement in this vulnerable state, but Shockwave was, were it not for his dim color scheme, hardly distinguishable from a corpse.

When he had first arrived at Longarm’s apartment, a large but utilitarian building in shockingly close proximity to the Fortress, it had felt surreal. Longarm had showed him through the rooms, one by one, explaining very little other than what was an absolute necessity to know; there are no locks on the internal doors, do not try to unshutters the front room windows as it will trip the security alarm, you have to jiggle the wash rack nozzle occasionally to make it work properly. Then they had sat in awkward silence in the main room for fifteen kliks.

It wasn’t that Blurr had lost his investment in making things work, but like before the new and personal venue made everything seem fresh and taboo. Also, like before, he was being devoured by urges that he’d rather not deal with. His nerves, so young and tender, snapped.

“I want to see you in your other form.”

“Pardon?” Longarm had been reading something on a pad he’d brought home with him and seemed genuinely surprised by the question. Blurr bit his lip.

“Well you can, can’t you?”

Wary, Longarm nodded.

“I just mean you already know that I know who you are I don’t see the point in keeping up the façade anymore in fact it’s almost a little…”

Before he had even finished, Longarm began to rise, and stretch, and then the movement was so quick that even Blurr could not catch it. Shockwave stood above him, antenna grazing the ceiling. Despite his svelte physique and the largeness of the building, he seemed to fill every corner, red light dimming the florescent glow of the overhead. Despite himself, Blurr jumped back, knocking over his chair.

“I-oh!”

Shockwave tilted his head to the side, movement defined to the point of surrealism.

“Is this what you wanted?”

Mouth agape, Blurr took a tentative step forward. Then another. He ran his servos over Shockwave’s knee guard, up to the tank treads. He had half expected the Decepticon to pull away, but he didn’t, choosing instead to shift gently to better accommodate Blurr’s exploration of his body. His claws hung like rapiers at his sides, and Blurr handled then with careful wonder.

He kneeled and Blurr jumped away again, swiftly returning after only a nano-klik, bouncing around him at half speed. Then he was still, standing directly in front of Shockwave, face to face. Shockwave’s optic was almost the size of his entire helm. He could clearly see himself reflected in it. Blurr moved closer, until they nearly touched, reaching forward to wrap his hands around both antenna, anchor himself. Shockwave did not suppress his shiver.

“So this is who you really are.”

“Yes.”

He could feel Blurr’s tiny fingers shake.

“I want you to stay like this, when we’re in the house.”

There was a brief pause, and Shockwave was about to ask the obvious question when Blurr spoke again.

“I don’t like seeing you as Longarm. It’s a lie and it always was. I’m sick of being lied to. I’m sure you can understand that.”

“I do.”

Seeming satisfied, Blurr released him. Neither of them moved away.

“However,” Shockwave said, “not everything is about what you want.”

Blurr wrapped his arms tight around Shockwave’s neck and kissed the center of his faceplate.

* * *

 

It became fairly clear over the first deca-cycle that Shockwave was not going to adhere very strongly to the guidelines First Aid had set down for them. Not to say that he completely ignored Blurr’s needs, but many of the more invasive rules, ones they both felt unnecessary anyways, went ignored. Blurr could walk about if he so chose. Blurr could refuel when he felt like it. He was permitted to wash in privacy, although Shockwave did insist he not shut the door, just on the off chance something went wrong. Blurr suspected foul play. Rather, he hoped for it.

That was the most difficult part of settling into a new routine. Blurr had already made his desires quite clear, but Shockwave’s intentions were, as per the norm, obscured. He had certainly reciprocated the kissing, as Longarm, but in his true form there was little he could do to respond to Blurr’s advances in that department and the lack of reaction made Blurr queasy with nerves.

On top of all this he still did not trust the Decepticon, and with good reason. Mutual attraction or not, he was allowing himself into the berth of a killer, and he was well aware of it. Unfortunately, he trusted the Autobots less.

Sometimes he let himself forget, at least for short periods of time. Lying to himself was not without some rewards; to be in peace, to enjoy this closeness unmarred. It was not easy, when his only real memories of Shockwave before this were of his own attempted murder.

Still, he tried.

* * *

 

Shockwave had had it set up so that all the truly important data work was sent to his home computer, and much of his time was spent there, typing away. All the monitors on his desk at the Fortress had seemed hilariously oversized for a bot like Longarm, but the reason for their being was embarrassingly clear now, with Shockwave perched in a chair almost too small, hunched like a predatory animal over his keyboard.

He had many nice commodities to keep Blurr interested, including a rather impressively sized vid screen. The remote was still in the plastic casing he’d bought it in, covered in a fine layer of dust. Blurr blew it off and cracked the seal, curious.

“You know having the screen for appearances is one thing but don’t you think your guests would notice if you just left all this in its packaging?”

Without looking up from his work, Shockwave lifted a cube to the bottom vents on his helm and motionlessly sucked its contents up.

“I did not plan on having repeated, friendly visitors. The thing itself it simply there on the off chance this apartment was searched at some point.”

He was able to vocalize while refueling, the energon in his cube undisturbed. Blurr wrinkled his nasal ridge, finding it supremely unsettling.

“If they were searching your apartment they’d likely find the still-wrapped remote, wouldn’t they? I think that’d be grounds enough to find something suspicious about you, even if I wasn’t already searching your home for whatever reason, particularly since everything else in here is so clean and this drawer of scrap is so dusty I mean how does dust even get in a drawer?”

He had a bit of difficulty arranging his legs on the couch, voice trailing off to a mumble. While his physical state was improving every day, sometimes things that were normally simple took a little extra time, generally more than he’d like.

“If my apartment were being searched, I would already be in more trouble than a remote could save me from.” He set the empty cube down and continued typing.

“The screen is just a diversion.”

“You could say that about it even if you actually did use it, couldn’t you?”

Finally comfortable, Blurr turned it on. Like many things in the apartment, Shockwave’s couch had the distinct feeling of having seldom, if ever, been used. It was, however, nice and roomy, and Blurr allowed himself the indulgence of splaying out on it for it all it was worth, flicking through the channels at breakneck speed until he settled on the news. There was much to be caught up on. He stretched an arm up over his head, back arching until the joints clicked.

Completely unnoticed, across the room, Shockwave paused in his typing a moment, watching.    

* * *

 

“How did you choose the disguise? Longarm, I mean?”

Shockwave looked up from the document he was reading. It was always difficult to tell whether he was working or not, because both his job and his choice of recreation both involved much looming over data pads and silence. Though Blurr was looking away, his peripheral vision was tuned up to high, so he was able to acutely recognize the way Shockwave scrutinized his motives.

“He was a real bot. I was able to locate and recover his personal data files and identification code.”

The vid screen was playing, some light news article run twice daily by the local programming network. It was almost shockingly mundane in a world that seemed so totally changed from the one he remembered.

“A real bot?”

Blurr frowned, a million questions springing to mind at once, instantaneously being catalogued in terms of importance, relevance, and the level of dangerous reaction they could potentially provoke. All he said was, “did you kill him?”

A soft chuff.

“No, although I would have if there was need for it.”

Finally giving in to his curiosity, Blurr rolled over on his side, propping his helm up on his hands.

“So why did you choose him? I assume it had something to do with his physical appearance in terms of ease for you to maintain in the long-term, but of course I can only infer that there were other factors in play.”

Shockwave placed his data pad flat on the table, recognizing that this was turning into a real conversation.

“You are correct, although I did modify his appearance somewhat to increase my comfort.”

He gestured vaguely towards his middle. Blurr followed the movement with his optics, and then looked away briefly, as if embarrassed.

“Apart from that,” Shockwave continued, leaning back in his seat, “he was not a bot who would be missed or recognized. His corpse may have been fresh, but his records weren’t.”

Blurr sat up on the couch.

“How did you find him?”

Shockwave stood, moving to sit by him. Unused to the Decepticon being so forward, Blurr inched back to the other end. Shockwave didn’t seem to notice. Neither of them bothered to turn off the vid screen, which continued droning away in the background.

“The bot Lord Megatron assigned to work with me on the project was an ex-Autobot. She had a fairly comprehensive knowledge of where your kind goes to die.”

Blurr, disproportionately disturbed by the words, turned to the floor. They sat in silence for a moment.

“Was Longarm always grey?”

It sounded stupid, after the sobering turn their conversation had wandered down, but he needed to think about something else and it was one of the more harmless questions in his repertoire. Shockwave’s reaction was impossible to gauge.

“Yes.”

Blurr wanted to hug his knees to his chest, but was suddenly afraid of how it would look. Instead, he looked over at the colors in question, noticing, not for the first time, how the teal highlights were the only things keeping them from resembling the pallor of death.

“So you had to get your paintjob reprogrammed?”

Shockwave shook his head slowly.

“I can change to many colors,” he said, and even as he spoke his plating seemed to shift, becoming a dull yellow. Then a rich red, which looked garish, a deep hunter green, Blurr’s own blue. Enchanted, Blurr placed his hand against Shockwave’s, checking the match.

“Are any of these your real finish?”

“No,” Shockwave said, and faded, darker and darker, until he nearly melted away into the shadows. The purple was thick and heavy, ultimately Decepticon.

“These are the colors I was created in and under which I pledged myself to Lord Megatron.”

Blurr’s hands traced down the long stripes that elongated Shockwave’s waist, coming to rest just above the cylindrical pockets at his hips.

“What are these, anyways?” he breathed, half to himself. He touched one, tentatively circling the white indents around the front. Shockwave twitched.

“They house several extra transformation cogs.”

Blurr pulled away as if he’d mistakenly done something obscene.  

“Oh.”

Not many bots he’d known kept their vital organs so close to the surface. Shockwave seemed vaguely amused by his embarrassment.

“No need to be shy.”

Rubbing his hands on his thighs, Blurr muttered, “I’m not.”

He clearly was. Shockwave’s attempts to interpret his anxiety on the matter were somewhat mislead.

“Even if these were damaged, I have many more. I am rather ripe with them.”

Blurr continued to fidget his hands, a little faster now.

“No that’s not exactly why I’m so… you’re just very different, that’s all, very different than I had imagined you would be.”

He laughed, exasperated but not without humor. Oddly enough, Shockwave did not seem to question the statement at all. His antenna twitched, just the tiniest bit.

“I had hoped I would be.”

* * *

 

During the off cycles, the distance between them seemed to grow. At least, Blurr began to grow more aware of it. It was an odd sensation, to fear something as much as you wanted it. He had lost all pretense of denying the fact, even though it made him curl his fingers into little hooks against his palm just to imagine.

When his interface protocols reactivated, he wanted to shoot himself. At least he had been alone, or as alone as one could be with a roommate. The wash rack seemed a cliché place to rediscover your sense of eroticism, but nonetheless he found himself rubbing his hands down his body and wishing they were someone else’s.

He was promptly bombarded with update information as his lower half went through an entire system reboot. Everything spun in a centrifuge of data as he felt, for the first time in what seemed like eons, his spike begin to heat, his valve spiral in on nothing, and he slipped to the floor with a crash. There was movement from outside.

“Are you alright?” Shockwave called from his study. Blurr stared in horror down at his open array, which refused to do anything but continue heating up as system test protocols began to run.

“Yes!” he screeched about as loud as he could, hoping to Primus Shockwave wouldn’t notice how awful he sounded. There was no reply. He waved his hands in front of his equipment, not wanting to touch anything but desperate to make it disappear.

“Blurr?” Shockwave was coming down the hall. In a moment of panic, Blurr did the only thing he could think to, which was stand up, face the wall, and press his thighs as tightly together as he could get them.

“I-I-I just stripped! Tripped! I’m alright!” He punched himself in the forehead. _Stripped._

“What was that?” apparently his self-admonishment was only making things worse.

“Can’t I, can’t I just wash myself in peace! I don’t constantly need you looking over my shoulder at everything you know I don’t need protection every moment of the day and frankly I think enough time has passed since I came here to prove that I’m really doing very well thank you!”

His voice increased in pitch and speed as he noticed a trail of lubricant worming its way down his thigh. Immediately he stepped to the left, until the spray hit him more head on and covered any trace. Hopefully. There was more shifting outside the door, but Shockwave appeared to be respecting his privacy.

“I think you know better to assume I’m just going to let you roam unsupervised.”

Still, the doorway remained empty. Afraid he’d just say something stupid again, Blurr held his tongue. After a moment he heard a soft sigh.

“If you need me, I’ll be at my desk.” The footsteps retreated.

 He almost slammed his head into the wall, but remembered Shockwave’s abnormally sharp hearing and refrained. Already his equipment was depressurizing, small informative pop-ups letting him know that everything was working within acceptable parameters. Better than average, in fact. Congratulations.   

* * *

 

Still, recharge eluded him. Without the injections he found his dreams grew incredibly vivid, harsh, disorienting mixtures of fantasy and memory. Always, always of the walls.

Many times he awoke in his hysteria to find Shockwave hovering over him, holding him steady. It was difficult to find comfort in it, because the last place he had seen Shockwave had been outside the mouth of the security nexus tunnel, watching as Blurr flew away to his death. At the same time, he wasn’t profoundly disturbed by the sight of his would-be murderer at his berth side, like he had been when he had first seen Longarm’s smiling face in the med ward. He was simply there, a newly permanent fixture in Blurr’s life.

Though he desperately needed the defragmentation cycle, Shockwave did absolutely nothing to push him one way or the other. He still managed to perform adequately, although there was not much he had time to occupy himself with anyways. There were times, more often than he’d have liked, when he went too long between proper rests and the visions would begin to creep into his peripheral sight, sounds and colors disconnected to time and space frightening and confusing him until he sat in a daze, focused on nothing but the surreal. He tried to hide these moments from Shockwave, but recognized, even then, that it was a losing battle.

He took to recharging during the work cycle, on the couch. From his desk, Shockwave watched him twist and squirm, always attentive to his needs.

* * *

 

Blurr turned on the news and started screaming.

By the time Shockwave reached him, he had stopped, but he remained where he’d fallen, siting on his knees in the middle of the room, hands clasped over his mouth as he watched the graying husks on the screen. Shockwave recognized Reflector, all three of him.

“Oh,” he said, sympathetically, “oh.”

He knelt beside Blurr, trying to determine whether touching him right now would help or hurt. The Autobot did not acknowledge him at all. Sentinel had taken center stage now, but you could still make out their silhouettes behind him, slowly going limp as they cooled.

“We will continue to flush them out of the cracks in our society they hide inside! We will keep on pushing until there are none left! We will-!”

They were being carted off the platform now, like so much garbage. No one dared touch them with their bare hands. It was a shame, Shockwave thought; Reflector had always been fiercely loyal to Megatron, and had an odd respect for him as well. He had lost a valuable comrade.

Shockwave could not see where Blurr had dropped the remote, so he stretched out an arm and manually switched off the screen. As if broken from a trance, Blurr blinked his shutters, turning down to face the carpet but looking no less horrified.

“You should not have seen that,” said Shockwave, and then he did touch Blurr, enveloping his back with a warm hand. At first there was very little reaction. Then, Blurr began shaking violently.

“I don’t understand how this happened,” he said. Shockwave did not quite get the context, but Blurr continued.

“I mean did everybody just go insane while I was in stasis, in that cube, or were they already like this and I just didn’t notice, because this seems like a very, very abrupt change and I’ve never seen so many people so single mindedly cruel it just boggles the mind I can’t, I don’t understand…”

Shockwave pulled him to his side, caressing down his spinal strut.

“Autobot society has been shaped and designed to make this kind of mindless unity possible during times of strife. It is a method of control upheld by the Magnus line for generations.”

Blurr shook his head, believing but wishing he didn’t.

“And what, I’m just the exception because I was broken the day they called everyone together? I’m just lucky I was out of the way in time so I didn’t fall under whatever mind control they’re working on the public?” he was angry, but not at Shockwave.

“No,” Shockwave said, “you are simply special.”

Blurr could have hit him. He didn’t want to hear that. He didn’t want to think of himself as alone in a sea of brainless drones. He was alone enough already.

“That can’t be true!”

“It is.”

His shaking began to worsen. Shockwave was not particularly worried he would seize again, as he did in the medical ward, but he began to call up information on the proper procedures to subdue him should the need arise. He was distracted when he felt Blurr grab at him, wrapping around his waist, pressing his face into him as if he wanted to assimilate their forms.

“Are you ever afraid they’ll find you?” Blurr’s voice was muffled in his side. He could feel the tiny white lips tickle against his protoform.

“Fear is a pointless emotion,” said Shockwave. It was answer enough.

* * *

 

Blurr tried very hard to be quiet. He placed as much of the weight of his steps as he could on the rubber pad of his wheels, but his feet were not designed to balance that way and the occasional misstep sent him loudly back on his toe or heel. Shockwave did not stir, though, as he hadn’t for the past four mini-cycles, and Blurr continued to tear himself apart in peace.

He couldn’t recharge, but that wasn’t new. Neither was the mounting desperation in his chest, but this off cycle it was particularly so and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could resist it. He was so, so tired.

Shockwave remained completely still when Blurr approached him. He wasn’t sure if he had expected any different. Deciding to bite the bullet now and face the repercussions later, he gingerly knelt between the thin thighs and crept forward to their apex. He pressed a trebling hand to Shockwave’s chest plating, followed shortly by the side of his helm. Behind several feet of sturdy alloys, a large spark whirled. Blurr wasn’t sure he’d ever heard anything so deep.

Arranging himself to better listen, he slung a leg over either thigh, minding the treads, and wrapped his arms as far as they’d go behind Shockwave’s waist. He was sure that he would regret this, positive, but it did not stop him. The sound soothed him more than anything he had experienced before, and he let his optics shutter. Shockwave had not so much as twitched the entire time.

“What are you doing, little thing?”

There was no effort made to disguise the affection there. Rather than driving Blurr away, he only held on tighter.

“Shockwave,” he hissed, as though they were back in the hospital where whispers were a necessity, “I don’t want to be alone.”

Two long claws stroked down his back.

“You are not alone. I am positioned less than ten kil away from the berth.”

“Shut up!” Blurr snapped, turning to bury his face against the metal. “You know what I meant!”

Shockwave wrapped his servos around Blurr and pulled him easily away. Tiny hands gripped his claws tightly. Blurr could not meet his gaze.

“You are trying to tempt me?”

He could see Blurr’s chest beginning to heave with the force of his ventilations as fear consumed him.

“I don’t- I don’t know I just want to be close to you is that really so bad I mean I just need, I haven’t had this kind of contact in a long long time and I want, I want you.” Then he did look up, as seriously and small as ever, bottom lip worried between his silvery teeth.

“I do. I really do. Not even for interfacing I mean, I just want to be close to you. Not that, not that I would be opposed to it, interfacing, that is, who doesn’t like interfacing, but, I just, I mean, oh slag…”

Shockwave rolled his claws under Blurr’s armpits, manipulating his limbs like a doll. Blurr bowed his head submissively.

“I understand the feeling.” He could have said it meanly, but didn’t. Lifting Blurr up until his feet couldn’t reach the ground, Shockwave hummed the same pensive note he always did.

“Would you like me to recharge with you?”

Blurr’s spark jumped in his breast. Shockwave could feel it echoed all the way out through his energy field.

“Yes,” he breathed, “yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”

He was held closer and took advantage of the position, wrapping his arms snugly around Shockwave’s neck. The Decepticon shifted, stood, and carried them both across the room to the small slab. Reclined, he could just fit if he remained perfectly still and flat. This generally tended to be his modus operandi, and he assumed the form, slowly, so that Blurr could rearrange himself as they descended.

Their final position left Blurr sprawled on top of him as he would the couch. The size disparity left much room for improvisation, and Blurr found himself comfortably situated with his head beneath Shockwave’s chin, on his broad chest plate, spark to spark. His back curved smoothly across the plains of Shockwave’s stomach, legs dangling down on either side of his waist to rest, disheveled, against the berth pad. He curled his arms up underneath his body, reveling in their shared warmth. Shockwave was oddly cold for a bot of his size, but he conducted nonetheless.

“This is to your liking, then.”

It was probably meant to come across as a question, but they could both see the ease with which Blurr conformed to Shockwave’s curves. It was the most relaxed he had been in this new body, perhaps even before. A single hand rose and fell above him, covering the majority of his torso in a safe cage of servos.

“Yes,” Blurr repeated, “yes.”

He powered down, heavy with unprocessed data. The defragmentation process lasted longer than expected, and in the early light of the day he was still in the thick of it. Shockwave stared down at the prone figure and found he was not inclined to disturb him. Between the two of them, not much was accomplished that cycle.    

* * *

 

That was enough. He had been questioning his morals before, his willingness to continue Shockwave’s deception within the ranks, but now he was more than a hapless outsider to the situation; he was an accomplice. It was something he had never dreamed he would consider himself, and certainly never hoped to. He was a good Autobot. He was a good Intelligence agent.

Now, he was a good liar.

During the day he’d find himself less and less alone, both emotionally and in terms of privacy. It was not that he was consciously followed, more that he began to realize how easily he had been being observed in the first place. Shockwave’s home was surveillance proof, soundproof, windowless. He had always seen it as a fortress, not a prison.

In the dark off cycles he pressed his chest as flat as it could go against Shockwave’s, desperate to feel the soft echo of his spark. It kept the Decepticon real, a person beneath him, holding him. It was incredible how quickly he had allowed himself to give in.

* * *

 

Shockwave began to allow more truths of his being present themselves. If Blurr approached him while working, he would not hide what he was doing. Blurr watched him edit to the point of falseness two reports on Decepticon activity in the lower districts.

“If there is no more Decepticon cause,” he said, “why do you need to lie on the reports? Aren’t these just mistakes?”

Shockwave pet the top of his crest.

“We had implanted several sleeper agents into Autobot society. Now that they are no longer part of a grand scheme, I see no reason to allow them to fall into trouble with the law.”

Bolder than ever, Blurr pulled himself up onto the chair with Shockwave, perching on his thigh and scrolling through the file. Shockwave allowed it, pulling his claws away.

“Why are they continuing to pursue suspicious activities then?”

“Well,” Shockwave sighed, “they aren’t fully aware of their actions.”

Blurr came across several pictures of popular idols and was surprised to recognize his own work.

“Flip-Sides!”

“Mm.”

He leaned back into the warmth of Shockwave’s body, tilting his head up to gaze at him.

“You knew who it as all along, didn’t you?”

Bemused, Shockwave nodded. He took the data pad back from Blurr.

“So…was I right? Can you tell me? I assume you can since I already know about you and frankly I don’t see any reason to continue keeping information from me other than to be cruel which I certainly hope you won’t do since I have formed rather a large dependency on you now and-!”

The data pad lowered in front of his face. Shockwave had, as per the norm, been ten steps ahead of him. Illuminated on the screen was the smiling face of Rosanna, arms wrapped snugly around the neck of one of her menagerie. Blurr slapped a hand against Shockwave’s thigh in his excitement.

“I was right! And you were just keeping the facts from me!”

He was practically vibrating with mirth. Pleased, Shockwave allowed his own energy field to creep out and entwine with Blurr’s, expressing his satisfaction.

“Of course. You were always one of the better agents in the office. I had quite the chore cleaning up after all the leaps and bounds you made in this investigation.”

Blurr read through his own reports, noticing the places corrections had been made, facts changed and rearranged to turn the harmful into the tame, and realized he had done well. Quite well, in fact. As suddenly and unexpectedly as Longarm’s fist coming down on his head, his joy turned sour.

He had done well, but there was very little chance he would be given the opportunity to again. He had mouthed off at the Magnus, been caught in a death trap inside their own base and proved them wrong about their superiority and he would probably never get his job back. His hands fell away from the desk, coming up to cover his chest. What would he have left?

“Blurr?”

Shockwave’s claws around his waist. Everything was slotting so neatly into place in his mind that he was amazed he hadn’t realized the hopelessness of his situation before. His optics shuttered, unable to bear even the dim lighting of the study.

“What am I going to do, sir?” Forcing the words from his vocalizer was as painful as his first few steps in this form had been, foreign and jagged in his throat.

“What am I going to do after I get better? How am I going to keep my job when Sentinel has personal reasons to keep me out?”

He was beginning to shudder, and Shockwave held him tighter but it did not help.

“What if I can’t get a job again? What if I get deported?”

Shockwave tried to speak but Blurr couldn’t be stopped.

“And what about you?” he said, optics opening only to stare with accusing, new comprehension, “what are you going to do with me? You say you feel affectionately towards me but you’ve lied to me before and I can’t trust anyone right now can I? How am I supposed to know that his isn’t, that this isn’t some part of a great big plot and you’re using me again to some end I can’t even fathom because I’m not a Decepticon monster! How do I know that I’m not unwittingly being instrumental to a grand coupe, to the coming together of all the remaining forces you have somehow!”

It sounded absolutely insane, but so did the concept of Longarm Prime being a traitor just a stellar cycle ago. He was digging his servos into Shockwave’s thighs, as if to punish him for the hypothetical slight. Shockwave let him.

“If it came to that, if killing me again would bring back the rest of the Decepticons, or Megatron, would you do it?” He would not let Shockwave go, intensity crackling off his plating in waves. Shockwave looked at him, equally serious.

“Before I answer, you have to realize what you are asking me.”

“I do realize,” Blurr tried to interject, but Shockwave continued.

“You have to realize that you are asking me if your life is worth that of thousands of my comrades, people who uphold the same beliefs as me, who will continue the work I have believed in my entire function. You are asking me to let them die because of you.”

Blurr’s optics were wide, lips tight, almost a grimace. He wanted an answer, but for once, Shockwave could not tell which.

“Would you?”

Shockwave sighed, looking away.

“I did before, didn’t I.”

Curling forward in his lap, Blurr gagged on emotion. The body at his back lowered, arms as thick as his shoulder width snaking around him until he was cradled to Shockwave’s breast.

“That is not the situation, though. Your life, while important to me, is inconsequential in the bigger picture. I will not be forced to make such a decision again.”

Refusing to touch him, Blurr wrapped his own arms around himself, knees smacking at Shockwave’s hands as he tried to fold away.

“What if I turn you in?”

“You won’t.”

He swung his knee up again, this time with intent, kicking Shockwave as hard as he could.

“I could! You’re a murderer! I should!”

“You haven’t, and you won’t.”

Blurr squirmed from his grasp, crawling up onto the desk before anything could be done about it and turning around to face him, on his back, fists clenched.

“Come on then!” he bared his dental grill, thighs spreading.

“Come on, crush me!”

Shockwave was on him in an instant, grabbing his arms and pulling them back, slamming his pelvic armor against Blurr’s unprotected mesh. His chair rolled back and hit the wall. Data pads spilled down around them, loud and chaotic. Blurr arched up to meet him with an angry shriek, legs pressing painfully wide to accommodate.

Looming down over him, Shockwave’s ventilations in his audio receptor made him burn.

“This is what you want, then?”

“Kill me!” said Blurr, struggling, not to escape but to get closer. His legs locked around those horrifying cog holders at Shockwave’s hips, pulling himself off the desk to grind them together. Shockwave humped against him roughly and he almost sobbed.

A claw pressed to his crotch and there was no resistance whatsoever, panel sliding back to expose himself, swollen and wet, like a wound. The same claw pressed against his valve, rubbing between the folds, sensitive and new. His calipers flared open, stimulated for the first time, and warnings Blurr hadn’t seen since he was a youngling flashed across his CPU.

His new body was still sealed. Shockwave prodded the thin rubber film, testing his reaction. Blurr thrashed.

“Do it! I don’t care, I want it, I want it, I want it, please!”

He was penetrated, harder than he ever had been, one smooth stroke sinking all the way to the back of his valve. He felt like he was being torn open, almost was, Shockwave’s red optic filling his vision like the organic planet’s sun.

“You’re so small, Blurr,” said Shockwave, voice low and thick and static laden.

“I really will kill you if I come inside now.”

As if to emphasize his point, his spike pushed up between them, huge, violent. Blurr beat his feet against Shockwave’s middle.

“Oh, Primus, do it!”

 “No.”

Blurr contracted violently around him, spasming. His hands were twitching and curling, trying to grab against whatever he could but remaining pinned. Shockwave’s claw twisted and turned inside him, lighting up every single sensor node, blinding him with pleasure as they burst to attention for the very first time. He really did sob now, helm thrashing from side to side.

“Shockwave, Shockwave, Shockwave, Shockwave, _Shockwave, Shockwave, Shockwave, Shockwave!_ ”

Groaning, he bent over Blurr, removing his claw and immediately pressing the underside of his spike in its place. Blurr’s valve was impossibly hot, soaking, lubricants already running down both their plating. Shockwave thrust against him, pushing so close that their chests almost touched. Blurr screamed and screamed, and he was so thankful, not for the first time, that his apartment was soundproof because the act was as violent as a murder and twice as messy.

Cycles of tension built between them came down like a dam. Blurr’s back bowed when he came, until his blind optics angled back to the door of the room, voice pitching so high that it cut out to a static sizzle and a stream of sparks mid-way through his overload. The electricity bouncing off his plating caught against Shockwave’s own, teasing the connectors around his spike, and for all his restraint he only managed a few more thrusts.

He didn’t bother pulling away, because Blurr was begging for it, and his transfluid splashed across his blue belly and all over the now empty surface of his work space.

He sagged, Blurr doing the same in his hands, and fell back to where his chair had once been. Now there was only empty air, and he dropped even further than he’d expected and hit the rug soundly. Above him, Blurr’s thighs twitched, tender with scrapes. His toe pieces had half transformed down into his heels, and were in the process of slowly realigning themselves to the front between shudders. Shockwave could hear his ventilations, wheezing and fast even as he cooled. Something dripped off onto the floor, smelling of both their fluids.

Everything was such a mess.

“I-I…”

He looked up. Blurr was trying to sit upright, not doing a very good job of it. He was covered in Shockwave’s transfluid, slipping in it a bit, and despite his recent overload and the disgusting state of his furniture Shockwave found the sight incredibly erotic. Blurr looked at him, lost.

“I don’t…”

Standing, Shockwave reached for him again, this time not to restrain but to caress.

“Shh.”

“Why does it have to be like this?”

He pulled Blurr to him, felt his tiny arms wearily hug to his chest.

“I do not know, Blurr.”

Shifting his hold, he stood. Blurr easily conformed to his touch, wrapping his legs around his hips to further steady them. The room was filthy and so were they. He turned towards the wash rack.

“I don’t even know if I want things to go back to the way they were anymore,” Blurr confessed, barely above a whisper.

“Everything is terrible now but I don’t want it to stop. I don’t want you to leave. I hate you but I, I love you so much.”

“I know,” said Shockwave, turning on the shower.

* * *

 

They remained entwined for cycles, not quite interfacing, not quite at rest. Blurr didn’t want to think about what they were doing, and so he didn’t, easily distracted by those bladed claws between his thighs, that thick spike in his hands, or his mouth. Shockwave was more than obliging.

Finally they lay together on the berth, Blurr atop his flat chest plate, looking up at nothing. Shockwave stroked his waist lazily with a single digit, and Blurr could feel acutely the slow pulse of his spark beneath.

“What are we going to do now?”

He didn’t have to move to feel Shockwave’s entire chassis heave with a sigh.

“Nothing.” The vibrations traveled up into Blurr’s back. “There is nothing to be done.”

“What then? We’re just going to keep this up, even when I’m not on medical leave anymore? I’m going to keep, keep lying to everyone about what I know and you’ll keep lying to everyone about what you do and we’ll both lie about the fact that we spend every waking moment behind closed doors blowing each other’s diodes?”

Shockwave shifted a little, vents opening with a great expulsion of warm air.

“That’s the idea.”

Rolling over on his chest, Blurr faced him. Shockwave’s optic was offline, but he knew the Decepticon was fully aware of his intense stare.

“And what if something changes? Someone finds out or, or your comrades start a riot or…”

“Blurr.”

Shockwave’s hand fell heavy on his back, not offensive, merely holding him steady.

“If you believe I have not already planned for every possible situation, you are very misinformed of my character.”

He on-lined his optic, fixing Blurr in the unnatural red beam of his gaze.

“You will just have to trust me.”

Blurr stared at him a moment more, quivering as if he wished to speak, but then he lowered his optic shutters, pressing his helm to the side on Shockwave’s neck.

“I want to.”

He was glad he didn’t live in silence and stillness anymore. He was glad to not be alone, to be wrapped in the arms of a bot he had idolized for so many stellar cycles he could hardly believe it. He was glad to feel the warmth of another body, hear the rhythmic ticks and pulses of a life outside his own pressed against his audio receptor.

He was no longer tired.


	6. Interlude 3: Impossibility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shockwave reveals the beginnings of the end.

The computer terminal in Longarm’s office transformed up and out, and he did along with it. The moment the screen flickered to life, Strika was leaning forward in her chair towards the screen, fists braced against the table.

“Shockwave.”

Hers was not a face on which emotion was easily gauged, but Shockwave had had enough practice with that for them both.

“General,” he nodded, posture reflecting nothing but casual grace.

“Is it true?”

He knew this would be why she called. In fact he would have been surprised if she hadn’t been ringing his office all day. That odd little conglomerate creature Megatron had created during his time on Earth was gifted in ways they had not expected, namely monitoring Autobot communications. They would have seen the broadcast. Everyone within a three planet range was intended to.

“I’m afraid so.”

Strika off-lined her optics, pounding her knuckles against the table, looking away.

“How can this be…?”

“Sentinel is trying to establish his superiority by coming down hard on all convicted criminals and sympathizers. He wants to make as many changes in the system as possible while retaining the unbalanced favoritism of the privileged that allowed him the opportunity to rise to power in the first place.”

Strika made a short sputtering noise, as if spitting.

“When we are done with that fool he will be little more than a grease stain on the capitol floor!”

“Yes,” said Shockwave, leaning forward finally to tent his claws on the desk, “but not now. Not for a long while, in fact.”

There was no need to explain his reasoning. Strika’s shoulders slumped as her rage again bled into grief. For once, Shockwave did not judge her for having a spark so easily read; he shared her pain.

“What of…the others?”

Shockwave exhaled slowly. He had expected this question as well.

“They are all here, though for how long, I cannot say.”

He could see her reaction rising like fire inside her chest, even through the screen. Strika was smart, incredibly so, but her passion was sometimes enough to blind her.

“Do not do anything hasty, General,” he said, optics boring through the screen.

“Your movements at this time would only serve to harm our cause. You cannot save him, now.”

“I am fully aware of how foolish moving in at a time like this would be,” she snarled, “but you cannot expect me to be pleased about being forced to wait and watch as they are picked off one by one!”

Turning to look down at his filing for the evening, Shockwave considered her plight. Of course it affected him as well, but after Lord Megatron’s public execution his emotional ties to the prisoners ended. How incapacitating it must be to share your love with so many.

Briefly, he thought of the trash chute behind Cliffjumper’s desk.

“If it is any consolation,” he intoned, “Lugnut is likely going to be spared a while longer as he is labeled as being integral to the Guard’s investigation. I have little to no control over the arrangements, but we may at least take comfort in the fact that it will mainly be those foolish enough to get captured in the near future who will be subject to capital punishment.”

She seemed to consider this, nodding.

“Fair enough.”

Nothing was said for a klik, and Shockwave assumed all that was needed to be had been. He reached for a data pad.

“If that is all…”

“It is not.”

Strika was looking at him with an expression he, surprisingly, could not read.

“You do realize,” she said, carefully, “that when the traitor perished on the mud planet, the chain of command shifted?”

“Of course.”

He really didn’t have time for this.

“Then you realize that you were promoted?”

“Logically.”

She sat back, the weight of the moment bearing heavy on her shoulders.

“I see.” She said softly. Her hand rose to her breast in a stiff salute.

“Hail Lord Shockwave.”

The call ended.


	7. Act 4: Distractions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blurr returns to work and finds trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All I have to say about this chapter: C=

 

Blurr was to be temporarily demoted until his mental condition could be assessed. Longarm received the invoice within three cycles of when he was supposed to return to his job. You could hardly say they were disappointed; rather, Blurr had basically been given confirmation that he wasn’t going to be fired.

Being a courier wasn’t bad pay, either.

“So you’ll still be seeing me around work, a lot actually, since if I remember correctly you practically had Cliffjumper running around delivering stuff for you constantly anyways, but my real concern is, if you don’t mind my asking, what we are going to do about our current living situation I mean I’m not technically required to stay with you anymore am I?”

“No,” said Shockwave, gently adjusting Blurr’s position on his lap, “you are not.”

Not liking to be manhandled, Blurr wriggled around a bit as he tried to get comfy. Shockwave’s frame grew slightly warmer behind him and Blurr snorted, elbowing him in the gut.

“I am _trying_ to have a serious conversation here!”

Illuminated by only the glow of the vid screen, Shockwave looked oddly normal, the garish lights and colors reflecting off his polished metal revealing the little pits and dents that went unnoticed in his dark apartment. Blurr had traced his servos over them so many times before, but there was so much. He felt he might never truly know all of Shockwave’s form. Probably by design.

“The same things keeping us apart before still stand.”

Shockwave’s tone was low and level. Blurr wished he had continued to squirm, then. He didn’t want to hear this.

“I know, I know that, but we aren’t just going to stop now, are we? I mean you and I both have so much at stake now, I’m a collaborator, I’m involved and you know full well that even if I swear now I won’t give you away I still might, we can’t just pretend this never happened.”

“That is not what I was suggesting.”

Turning to the side, Shockwave moved to lay on his back, the couch groaning under their combined weight. Easily, Blurr moved with him, until he sat perched atop his chest, looking down into the pool of red light.

“We will simply have to act in secret. It is something neither you nor I are strangers to.”

A claw came up to caress Blurr’s aft. He swatted at it, only half caring, a small smile tugging at his lips.

“Why couldn’t- why couldn’t we have done that before you tried to kill me?”

Winning their little battle, Shockwave moved in to fully grasp at Blurr’s lower back, claws dipping around to the front and stroking his inner thighs all at once.

“You did not know who I was then. I was too fond of you to allow it.”

“Primus!” said Blurr, leaning back to better accommodate him, “you monster!”

He was laughing.

* * *

 

Blurr’s flat was so much smaller than he’d remembered. The first thing he thought upon walking inside was that Shockwave would not be able to comfortably stand in any of the rooms, and then he had to kick the wall very hard as punishment for even considering the Decepticon’s comfort over his own.

Everything was as he’d left it, give or take a little dust. It smelled vaguely of rust, which he hated, and before doing anything else he opened all the windows and inhaled deeply. Being outside, in the streets, had been unsettling. Of course, going to Longarm’s apartment had been similarly so, but he lived in a better neighborhood and the trip had been short. Longarm had been with him. Now he was alone.

From his living room he could see one of the enormous vid screens down attached to the front of a bar. Nothing but repetitive imagery of the Magnus and Guard warning the public against various Decepticon activities flashed across it now. He wondered when the next time it would play real footage would be. There wasn’t enough kindness in him at the moment to hope for ‘never’. One of the propaganda scenes the screen projected noted that traitors could be there, _living right next door_! It made him smile, but he felt guilty.

 Cleaning. Everything needed cleaning. Shockwave’s apartment was always spotless; he was devoted to immaculate desktops and berth pads. Clean bodies as well. As Blurr brushed off the coffee table, he thought about kissing Longarm there, decivorns ago, and felt flushed with heat. Pride, too, because now he could kiss Longarm whenever he wanted, within certain parameters.

He worked as quickly as usual, and everything was spotless in the space of a cycle. He turned on the vid screen, but turned it off again almost as quickly. He took a long shower that ended up wasting only ten kliks. He looked out the window and watched the small forms of bots below scurrying about their business, but after a while he began to wonder about them, if they were the same bots who watched the executions and cheered, enjoyed the speeches and celebrations as if they had personally contributed to the cause, and it made him queasy.

Eventually he just lay in his berth, staring up at the ceiling as he had cycles ago in the med bay, waiting for the work day to come. It was an unusually long wait.

* * *

 

Cliffjumper gave him a long look up and down before handing him the stack of files.

“You look fine to me.”

Blurr accepted them and immediately gave them a cursory once over in an attempt to mask his glower. Cliffjumper was normally suspicious and dower but this morning he seemed particularly so. It made Blurr a little antsy. Cliffjumper was fixated on his face, crossing his stubby arms over his boxy chest.

“Is this it? I don’t mean to sound like I’m ungrateful or, I suppose that’s not the right word for this situation, _bored_ would be more accurate, underwhelmed, but either way this seems like a very small amount of filing given that it’s meant to last my entire cycle.”

It took longer than usual for Cliffjumper to speak, to the point that Blurr had to make optical contact because he wasn’t sure if he’d been understood. It was difficult re-acclimating himself to bots who didn’t have a higher level of sensory skill, or weren’t the seldom-caring nurses back in the medical ward. He almost wished he hadn’t looked, though, because Cliffjumper’s gaze was so piercing and accusatory he would have been offended if it hadn’t given his spark such a jump.

“About half those deliveries are to other data hubs in the building or downtown,” said Cliffjumper, equally slowly, “you’ll pick up the rest of your load over the course of the cycle.”

Blurr shuffled the stack into a neat rectangle, trying to look unconcerned.

“That’s not very economical, is it?”

“I don’t really care.”

The way he forced each syllable between his lips was maddening. They hadn’t spoken much before, and Blurr could not be entirely sure that he had been treated this way in the past. Surely a medical procedure was not enough to put him under suspicion, or at least more than the usual amount Cliffjumper placed on everyone’s head. Perhaps he had come to the same conclusion that most bots did in that his swiftness of speech belied little thought behind his words. He was fast, so he must be slow. Blurr bit his lip and read the destination label on the file atop the stack.

“Report in before you sign out at point-oh-two-eight. That way we can make sure nothing was,” another brief onceover before Cliffjumper began, finally, to turn back to his desk, “lost.”

Of course.

“Of course, sir.”

* * *

 

Transformation was like a good stretch, every strut and wire and servo snapping into place so cleanly and perfectly that his spark burned a little brighter each time. Even after several days of this, it persisted, like the life was slowly trickling back into his frame shift after shift.

Cybertron was cold, the streets populated as ever but dead in comparison to their former buzz. Bots talked in hushed tones, gave each other queer looks, held their helms low. Blurr was able to recognize and catalogue images of their stern faceplates even as he flew by them, wheels practically lifting off the ground at every slight turn. He felt strangely detached from them, as if their lives and his existed in different, parallel universes and he was glimpsing them through some fine veil. Their world was dark and full of fear, but in his bubble of super-fine air, there was only room for joy.

Slowing down cut the distance between their realities, though, and stopping to actually speak with any of them breached it completely. While it was horribly disconcerting to have his job in such a state of limbo, he was also intensely grateful that he wasn’t stuck doing deskwork at a time like this, when he needed the freedom so dearly. The bots in their stuffy offices who handed him their thin data packs with repetitive warnings of fragility didn’t understand, but Shockwave did.

He had not been intimate with his boss since returning to work (although the phrase itself, _intimate with his boss_ , sent a bolt of charge straight through his hardware that nearly tripped him up multiple times per cycle) but they had certainly been in contact. It was almost a game, a frightening, dangerous one, where they crossed paths in his office or the hallway, semi-accidental, dancing around pleasantries and meaningful looks, Longarm Prime reserved and polite, Blurr brushing a hand up his cooling thigh to flick away dust. So casual, so innocent.

Blurr wondered when their next private meeting would take place. He had no frame of reference for this, no idea if it would be spontaneous or delicately planned, whether he would be directed with a subtle sign or dragged into an unused storage closet. He ached with fear and exhilaration, a mess of nerves at all times. Each trip outside the Metroplex was both a relief and an anxiety, because as much as he craved intimacy with Shockwave he also was repulsed by it.

The lack of contact had not made him any less fond of the bot, if fond was a word that could really be used in conjunction with Shockwave at all; it was more that he had been given time to truly recognize the weight of his secret. The amorality was something he had already run through his processor until his circuits felt fried, but he had not until recently considered the actual implications of his current status as being illicitly involved in a romantic relationship.

Relationships themselves were a field he was fairly out of practice in. Since he had launched himself into his career there had been no time for these things, outside of his turbulent attraction to Longarm, and before that he had not been considered prime property for a variety of reasons that were fairly self-evident. He was distant, glitched, difficult to understand, and his various shortcomings in the berth did not build a strong foundation for his reputation on the market. He hadn’t been seriously involved with someone since his late hundreds, maybe a few fleeting affairs in his first two millennia, and even without the lies stacked upon lies he remembered them as being difficult to navigate.

How did one proceed in a relationship that had begun so violently? He was not sure if he should consider his past relations with Longarm as part of this process, as they were held under different assumptions and falsities. They had to be quiet about it, so the worry of moving in together seemed pointless. What really kept Blurr up was the curiosity of Shockwave’s emotional spectrum. Romantic pursuits were about mutual trust and support, but the Decepticon’s cultural and mental situations laid so far left of the racetrack that any attempt he made to contextualize them ended in a frustrated recognition of their futility. He was doubtful it was even expected of him.

“You’re overthinking things.”

Blurr jolted, dropping his armful and then grabbing it again before it had even visually registered with Councilor Botanica. A slew of half-mumbled apologies followed, but in a pleasant break from the usual berating her fellow members had not been shy about unleashing, she merely smiled.

“I can code the slug with directions, don’t worry. A few things have been renamed around here, I can understand how it would be confusing for you, after all this time.”

 Watching her move back to the computer terminal in her foyer, Blurr’s frown deepened. Sentinel had been quite clear on his stance with Blurr’s accident. The Council were not without means, but the incident seemed insignificant enough that it was unlikely it was of interest to them. Of course, living inside these lavish towers, he mused, it was a wonder they took anything in the world below as interesting at all.

“Pardon me?”

Her optics flickered to him and back, just as she disengaged the newly imprinted slug from its slot.

“You’re from the intelligence division, correct?” a nod towards his still winged symbol as she handed him the map.

“Always on those long missions. And it must have been long, for you to not know the Interstate Bridge.” She winked. “It says so on the map, but to be clear, it’s the Sherma Bridge now.”

He returned her smile, albeit shakily.

“I see. Thank you, Councilor.”

“It is I who should be thanking you! It normally takes the courier half the cycle to get here, and this information is somewhat time sensitive.”

Her accent tipped a little bit thicker and Blurr recognized the smallest hint of insecurity. The file package was clearly triple coded and physically locked off. While he didn’t tend to dabble in gossip on his own time, until recently it was literally his business to know it, and the thought set in that this was undoubtedly something involving her scandalous partnership with Rattletrap from the lower quarter. The address was probably a drop-off point rather than a final destination.

“Well, I can assure you there is no need to worry on that front in the slightest. I hope you recognize that when I say I am the fastest bot on the job I do not do so as a means of bragging, not at all, it’s a genuine truth and I will get your delivery there in record time with no damage whatsoever.”

He could see in her optics that she had not quite caught all of his speech but she seemed to relax regardless.

“Are you allowed to accept tips?”

He shifted his weight to his left leg, almost imperceptibly.

“Not really.”

Botanica slid back a small panel on her wrist, extending a general use data cable.

“Then consider this a gift.”

Unsure as to why he was even doing so, Blurr copied the motion and allowed her to plug in briefly, watching with numb surprise as she transferred a generous sum to his personal account, easily carding through the security wall with her Council credentials. The interaction was over in nano-kliks, and he pulled his arm away as soon as her plug had disengaged, self-consciously wrapping it around the packet of data he had yet to deliver.

“Thank you, Councilor, I mean, really, I don’t quite understand why but- thank you.”

Her smile took on a darker light.

“Well, this delivery is very important to me. I’m glad to know it is in good hands.”

Blurr supposed he could relate.

* * *

 

Longarm’s office was empty, so Blurr laid the weekly record on his desk and left. He was surprised at the door by Cliffjumper.

“Agent Blurr.”

Surprised, as it turned out, wasn’t a strong enough word. The double doors slid apart and there he was, arms folded defensively over his chest, blunt chin thrust forward like an accusing finger. Blurr’s vents flared, sputtering, and the tip of his pede caught in the molding, almost tripping him straight into the irate secretary.

“Cl-Cliffjumper? What are you doing here, I mean, Primus, you nearly scared my spark out, is it really necessary to hide behind doors like this? One of these cycles you are going to give someone shock-back failure! What if I had been Longarm?”

He straightened himself, patting down the plating on his legs as if testing for damage. Cliffjumper remained steady, expression foul as ever.

“I saw you go in.”

“Well, yes,” Blurr mimped, trying his best not to sound catty, “I always file reports at this time, it’s not exactly unusual, and it certainly doesn’t answer the unspoken question of why you were here, although I suppose I may have not made it quite clear.”

Like a small mountain, Cliffjumper remained steadfast.

“He’s out. At some meeting. Private thing, you know how it is.”

“Right.”

“I’m just surprised you knew the new lock code.”

Blurr blinked.

“I have B level clearance. Why wouldn’t I know it?”

Cliffjumper snorted, glancing briefly beyond Blurr into the office.

“I have B level, and I don’t know it.”

Optics narrowing, Blurr raised his nasal ridge high.

“Well that has very little to do with me. Unless you are implying something untoward in which case I would prefer it if you would just come out with it instead of standing here startling the scrap out of hardworking innocents just trying to go about their daily business.”

Fixing Blurr with a hard gaze, Cliffjumper seemed to shrink into himself for a moment, not in fear but as if becoming more compact, steadying his stance. Still bristling, Blurr refused to break his optics away, setting his lips in a thin line.

“You’re off work now, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” said Blurr, tightening his fists, “why?”

Cliffjumper opened his mouth as if to speak, then seemed to think better of it. Finally ending the staring contest, he directed his glare at Blurr’s feet.

“I don’t have time for this.”

He stalked back to his desk. Blurr made a face at his turned back. What a bent sprocket.  

* * *

 

Longarm was everywhere, over everything. Knees against his chest, Blurr writhed, fingers clenching and unclenching on the chair beneath him. They had barely managed to make it inside the surveillance office before his panel popped open, everything at Longarm’s disposal, everything.

“You recognize that while this room is soundproof and emits a specified field disruptor to prevent any recording devices entering within ten feet of it you must still be cautious.”

It was a warning more than anything else. Blurr threw his helm back and keened.

“Of course, of course, of course sir!”

Something hot and heavy fell against his inner thigh. A spike, it must be. Blurr tried to look down but Longarm was leaning in, full belly pressing into his abdomen and blocking all view of what lay beneath. He could feel the heat radiating off it, valve leaking liberally at the slightest brush.

“Oh sir, oh sir, please tell me that you’re going to spike me, now that you’re small, please tell me you will oh please sir!”

Firm palms caressed his breast, cupping the sharp corners and poking at the seam between the metal and polyglass. Though he was still angled back in an awkward curl, Blurr managed to slide a hand up between them, rubbing Longarm’s stomach reverently. His other arm curled around his boss’s thick neck, just in time to receive a series of wet pecks on the mouth. The hands on his chest squeezed and he moaned helplessly.

“I’ve waited long enough, sir, please!”

Pulling back just slightly, Longarm smiled warmly at him.

“Have you now?”

There was a flash of white in the red orb of Shockwave’s optic, Blurr swore, just for a moment. The slit of his wicked pupil. Blurr shuddered, overwhelmed by memories of the sheer size of him. Longarm straightened up a bit more, finally revealing the fully pressurized cable between his legs.

It looked surprisingly little like Shockwave’s spike, although Blurr could understand why. Where Shockwave’s was solid and sharp, Longarm’s was blunted, kinder looking, certainly more easy to accept inside. It was not entirely without surface variation, sporting a pattern of segmented bulbing that was common in larger carrier frames. Trying to calm his ventilations, Blurr twitched his hips upwards invitingly.

Longarm’s wide fingers rubbed the small strip between his spike and valve top.

“Though I generally prefer interface in my true form to this ungainly substitute, I suppose it will take a very long time before you are able to accept me thusly.”

They slid down to pinch his lips apart, exposing him fully before the head of Longarm’s spike nudge between them.

“Oh Primus,” whispered Blurr, watching raptly. The blue light of the monitors lit Longarm eerily, shifting with the images displayed on them, and as he finally began to push inside Blurr almost felt he could be dreaming. They came together slowly, Longarm keeping a tight grip on Blurr’s thighs to prevent him from wriggling them closer, though he tried anyways. Even knowing that he should appreciate the slowness, that this was something he had wanted for the better part of his adult life and he should take the time to recognize the full weight of the moment, the pace was so agonizing that he could think of nothing else.

Then, it was in. Longarm heaved a quiet sigh, pelvic span nestled firmly against Blurr’s own, spike hot and thick inside him. His stomach pushed Blurr’s thighs further apart, the way Shockwave’s wide hips had, and Blurr gasped brokenly, dizzy from pleasure. One of Longarm’s hands left his thigh to cup Blurr’s face, thumb rubbing lovingly over his cheek.

“To think I waited so long to have you.”

“Don’t talk like that-!”

Blurr cut himself off by biting his lip as Longarm began to pull back, only a little, hips grinding in and out in a soft and subtle rhythm. Shockwave had taken the liberty of penetrating him several times, with claws alone, during their time together in Longarm’s apartment, but it had been long enough since then, and most definitely long enough since Blurr’ last true interface, to make the intrusion burn. Crumpled up as he was, Blurr could do nothing more than accept it, and accept it he did, shaking so hard it felt he might fall apart.

“Just because I-because I want you, doesn’t mean I trust you, not fully, but I do want you, I really, really do, so don’t think this means I want you to stop either oh Primus…”

Longarm pulled out fully and then thrust back hard. The force of his movement made the console beneath them tremble, and Blurr gasped as the quivering monitors flickered.

“Sir!”

Keeping up the rough pace, Longarm somehow managed to keep his grip on Blurr’s helm, sliding around the back to cup his head and prevent it from banging into the metal below with each forceful jerk of his hips. Blurr could not stop babbling, but that was nothing new. His arms flailed for something to better steady himself, one finding Longarm’s thick wrist and latching on, the other flapping back against a screen over his shoulder.  

A quick twist of Longarm’s hips had him clenching down hard, fluids rushing out around his pistoning spike, dragged down in a small overload. Fear caught up with him before he had even fully recovered, that Longarm would be affronted, push him off, think he was done, but his boss just kept pushing.  

“You don’t have to trust me just yet,” purred Longarm, facsimile lips bristling against Blurr’s helm, “take all the time you need.”

Blurr squirmed.

“See, when-when you say things like tha-ah-at, when you say things like that it makes me want to trust you more, and less, its-its coercion, its trickery, you’re trying to make me feel calmer and,” he bounced particularly hard, cutting off in an unsteady squeal, “you’re trying to put me off my guard with this nicey-nice act but it won’t work because I’m too, too smart and too fast, fast not slow, I won’t, I won’t be tricked-!” and then he overloaded, hard, valve constricting hotly around Longarm, almost so that he couldn’t move at all, lubricant gushing fourth between them.

Longarm did manage to move, though, pushing himself inside and holding them together, just in time for his own overload to hit. Blurr slapped a palm over his mouth to muffle his screech as transfluid burned down his valve channel, spurting out with the rest of his overload, which tumbled down the steep slope into his third of the session. I had been quick and dirty, but he felt surprisingly sated.

“Shockwave,” he mumbled, body relaxing slowly into its normal shape as Longarm disentangled their limbs from one another, stepping back and producing a small cleaning rag from his subspace compartment.

“Blurr,” he said mildly, patting himself down, “do not ever refer to me by that designation outside of my quarters again.”

He handed the cloth over.

“I, sir, I’m sorry…” he cleaned himself quickly but efficiently, mortified by even the idea of being caught with intimate fluids on his person. Unsure what to do with the rag once he’d finished, he tried offering it to Longarm, who smiled again, pointing towards an incinerator slot in the back wall.

“I have many more.”

Blurr stumbled across the room, nearly tripping himself on the discarded command chair by his feet, mumbling all the way. Despite this not being their first encounter of this nature, by far, he felt suddenly nervous, as if something had changed between them. He didn’t want that.

  “Agent Blurr.”

He turned, surprised by the use of his title.

“Do not worry.”

Longarm keyed in the exit code on the door lock, optics on Blurr.

“Things will come to make sense in time.”

He hesitated as the door opened, watching Blurr fidget. His mouth remained closed but Blurr still had the distinct impression that he had something more to say. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, though, because Blurr had to admit, even to himself, that he did want some sort of miracle answer, that Shockwave, so wise and ancient, would have the cure to his problems, that some combination of syllables would save his spark the pain of figuring it out for himself.

“Please wait sixteen kliks before exiting after me.”

Longarm left him to his thoughts.

* * *

 

They didn’t consume their lunch together anymore. There were occasional times when Longarm would stop by his table, just long enough to regale him with some snippet of information or a story about his morning, passing pleasantries, but most of the time he partook alone. As such, he generally chose to take his lunch a little later than the rest, hoping to be less noticeable in his solitude when the other bots around him were as well.

So, naturally, he was surprised when the sound of short, heavy footsteps approaches his table and, instead of striding right by, slowed, stuttered, and came to a halt about a pace from his seat. Blurr waited about .58 nano-kliks before turning to assess his situation.

“Is…are you eating alone?”

Blurr raised an optical ridge.

“For what purpose would you like to know, _Cliffjumper_?”

He made no attempt to hide his distaste, and the mech in question bristled.

“Don’t take that tone with me, you…” he cut himself off, sapping a hand to his mouth and looking away. He shifted, tapping his foot as he ventilated slowly, obviously trying to keep his cool.

“Look, agent Blurr, I…I’m sorry about being a, being a little, r-rude,” he spoke as if the words were physically painful to push out. Blurr watched him with calm appraisal, both attempting to determine his motive and stifling a nasty bubble of glee at seeing someone else taking on the role of the nervous talker for a change.

“I just wanna sit down, alright?”

Conceding to treat the secretary with at least some amount of decency, Blurr nodded, gesturing to the chair opposite his place.

“Fine, but if this is some veiled attempt to further insult or undermine me I swear Cliffjumper I will just snap, I really mean it.”

He did not really mean it. In all honesty, Cliffjumper’s rough attitude, while nerve wracking, was not the worst he was subjected to on a daily basis. At least he was fairly all-encompassing in his wrath. The entire world seemed to act as his antagonist.

“No, really it’s not. I just,” he shifted the cube in his hands, “wanted to have lunch with you.”

Blurr blinked his shutters several times in quick succession.

“Excuse me? You wanted to simply consume a meal with me? Me, the bot you feel the need to single out for all your problems with mislabeled data work week after week despite my only having contributed to the issue sixty three times in all my hundreds of stellar cycles in service? _Really_?”

Cliffjumper hunched over his drink.

“Yes. Shut up.”

Ignoring his comment, Blurr pressed on.

“You can’t seriously blame me for being skeptical of your sudden change of spark after all I recognize that I am not the easiest bot to get along with and you have been particularly brash with me since my recovery.”

As soon as the words left his vocalizer, Cliffjumper raised his cube to his lips and began to down it like Unicron had just breached the skyline. Blurr halted his tirade, a little stunned, watching him consume the entirety of his ration without pausing to ventilate. He finished with a spectacular puff of steam from his vents, slamming the empty glass down and promptly averting his optics once again.

“I was going to make a joke about you having blown a diode since you wanted to sit with me but now I’m beginning to wonder in all seriousness if you don’t have some internal malfunction.”

All this comment earned was an unintelligible grumble and more uncomfortable shifting. Blurr crossed his arms over his chest.

“Coming from an unusual angle of sincere concern, what is wrong with you?”

This time Cliffjumper did manage to meet his gaze, and Blurr was shocked by how suddenly tired his optics seemed. Pushing his cube away, the secretary clasped his hands together on the table top.

“Yeah, there’s something wrong alright, and it’s not a malfunction. At least, I don’t think so.”

He sighed, rubbing his nasal ridge, obviously having some difficulty. Blurr was still trying to decide if he should be genuinely worried or not. He didn’t know the minibot very well, definitely couldn’t say he liked him. He was beginning to fear, in the reasonably selfish way one does, that Cliffjumper was about to unload some strange and terrible truth about himself to Blurr, as if this bot he had barely conversed with prior could somehow answer to his woes. He had enough on his plate right now as is.

Steeling himself, he tried to force a smile. Cliffjumper pushed out another hefty sigh and Blurr, awkward but trying, tentatively patted the back of his hand.

“You mentioned your recovery,” he said at last, optics still offline, “well, I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, and...”

“Well, hello, agents!”

Their reactions were simultaneous, but greatly varied. Blurr flailed in his seat, only just righting himself as he nearly tumbled completely off it. Cliffjumper, on the other hand, froze completely.

“L-Longarm Prime, sir! I didn’t expect to see you this lunch period! That is, not to say that there’s ever a time when I’m not happy to see you but you understand my surprise as agent Cliffjumper and I were in a very, shall we say, intense discussion just now and, well, you nearly blew my spark out!”

Longarm smiled benevolently at Blurr as he clung to the table with shaking servos. Silently, Cliffjumper raised his helm.

“’Lo, sir.”

He coughed immediately after, as if he hadn’t meant for it to come out so gruff. Longarm tented his fingers, almost unusually serene.

“I’m not actually here to obtain lunch. Punch had accidentally taken the wrong file with him, and I had to run after him to retrieve it once I’d noticed.” he chuckled a little, nodding to the front of the room where the yellow bot sat reading a data pad and sipping a cube. He seemed to notice the attention and waved. No one returned his gesture.

“However, when I saw you two together I couldn’t resist the urge to say hello.”

Cliffjumper seemed to be growing increasingly uncomfortable, nodding absently while tracing his fingers around his glass rim. Blurr hardly took notice.

“No need to feel like you’re intruding, sir, you know I always welcome your company. Would you like to sit with us, now that you’re here?”

Longarm did a bang up job of looking pleasantly surprised, but Blurr recognized the brief flash in his optics and shivered.

“Well, since you’ve offered so kindly, perhaps I could take a moment off to partake.”

They both jumped when Cliffjumper stood, pushing his chair across the floor with a wretched shriek of scraping metal. He seemed suitably embarrassed by the involuntary noise, but not enough to cease his scrambling.

“I don’t mean to be, uh, rude, but I just remembered I have some data to file myself. So, I’ll just, uhm, leave you two to it.” He scuttled out of the room before either of them could think of a proper response.

With slow purpose, Longarm straightened his vacated seat, lowering himself into it leisurely. His smile dropped.

“What did he want?”

“I have no idea,” Blurr hummed, taking a quick sip of his ration, “but he sure had an odd way of going about it. I’ve never known Cliffjumper to be shy.”

“Shy?” Longarm frowned deeply.

“How so?”

His tone was very soft, Shockwave just beginning to bleed through. Blurr unconsciously crossed his legs.

“Don’t get jealous now. I think if Cliffjumper ever did deign to place his favors with another bot, much less one in his own workplace, breaking the rules he holds so dear, I would probably be his _last_ choice. That little tinderbox hates me.”   

That did draw a bit of a chuckle from Longarm, although it sounded a little forced.

“I wouldn’t be so sure. You are not a bot others often intend to befriend, but you are very attractive and they do take notice of it.”

Blurr stiffened a little, thighs rubbing together.

“That’s very flattering of you, sir.”

Longarm righted Cliffjumper’s cube, tipped and forgotten in his haste to escape.

“While it was a compliment, and a true one at that, I did not inform you merely to stroke your ego.” His optics rose to meet Blurr’s, and they were cold.

“Be wary of other’s attentions, Blurr. Many of them have darker motivations that you would do well to keep away from.”

A little unnerved by the sudden seriousness of his words, Blurr drank faster.

“Of course, sir, I am always aware of my peers.”

“That’s good to know.”

Longarm excused himself, taking Cliffjumper’s glass with him to discard on the washer line as he departed. Uncomfortable, Blurr followed, though he immediately made his was to his personal cubicle, attempting to avoid both his boss and the secretary. He didn’t like Shockwave’s implications about his fellow agents. Blurr was very aware of his physical appearance and its appeal, but the way his words had been phrased disturbed him. 

Luckily, there was a big stack of deliveries waiting for him on his desk. Let it never be said that losing yourself to distractions was an unhealthy way to deal with stress.

* * *

 

Three solar cycles after this incident, Blurr received a memo from the Magnus’s office. He doubted it was from Sentinel himself, because it simply read _“Deca-cycle completed with no complaints. Re-promotion pending.”_

He was not sure whether he should be offended by the off-handed phrasing. Of course he was good at his job. Of course there had been no complaints. Not only was he currently working a position miles below his skill level, but it was a field where he was uniquely advantaged.

In the end, he felt neither here nor there about it. While he knew objectively that this should be worth celebrating, as it certainly implied his continued usefulness to the cause, it seemed so small when compared to his other concerns. He was no stranger to being under surveillance. In the end, the note was left forgotten in a desk drawer.

* * *

 

Blurr skipped up the stairs to his floor. The apartment complex was dark, as usual. The hour was late, and he was exhausted. He finished his work more quickly than could be anticipated, as per the norm, but at the very last klik someone had dumped a load of packages labeled for downtown on him and he had no choice but to complete his shift a little past his usual check out. It wasn’t as if he had anything else to do, he supposed.

The deliveries had not been pleasant; their destinations were mostly dirty, unmarked warehouses where Primus-knows-what went on, likely supplies for the trainees in the outer reaches. Several of the bots receiving them had been rather fresh with him, more so than anyone would have liked, and in one instance he had to resort to sidestepping several grabs at his aft, although he managed to execute the maneuver entirely under the guise of innocent shifting.

Needless to say, he was not in the mood to play games, and when he reached his landing and turned out into the hall, he soured quickly at the sight of his neighbor.

“Hey.”

Blurr grimaced. The bot, whose designation he had yet to catch, did not necessarily mean ill towards him. He was simply an unpleasant character. Blurr had no idea whether or not he even worked. He seemed to merely linger in the hallway, looking off the balcony into the night air, or down in the stairwell, waiting to scare the wits out of whatever poor bot happened upon him first and then feign innocence.

  _As if he didn’t realize he was doing it._ Blurr refused to admit that some of his bitterness may stem from the fact that he himself was often the victim of such scares.

“Hello.”

His response was clipped and sharp and he hoped it would deter further conversation. When he approached, though, the bot turned, leaning back against the railing and puffing a cool cloud of smoke from his cygarette.

“You’re looking good.”

He always said that.

“Thank you.”

Walking faster now, Blurr hoped to pass by without the usual unpleasantness. Unfortunately, nothing ever went that smoothly.

“Slow down there, sweetspark.”

He grabbed Blurr’s arm.

In an instant, he was flat on his back, the tip of a buzzing edge of light inches from his chest.

Blurr stood above him, panting, arm outstretched, energy saw mounted neatly in its connection to his armor. For a brief moment, he had no idea what had happened. Alarms were blaring in his head, the edges of his vision flashing red.

“Hey, hey, no need to, aw, slag, I didn’t mean anything by it!”

The bot as his feet withered, covering his spark chamber with both hands. Clarity. Blurr stepped back, disengaging his weapon, fingers flying to his open mouth.

“I, I, I, I, I’m so sorry, I, I didn’t mean, oh my spark, are you alright?”

He reached down to try and assist the bot in rising, but he flinched away from it. Panic still swirling in his chest, Blurr stumbled back away, reaching to the railing to steady himself.

“Look, I don’t want any trouble, okay? Don’t get all, don’t go trying to write me up, or whatever.” His neighbor, still holding his arms out defensively, slowly rose to his feet. He inched towards his own apartment as he spoke, blindly typing in his lock code.

“No, I, I won’t write you up, you won’t get any trouble, this – this was my fault, I’m so, so sorry.”

The bot mistyped his number, and a loud, angry buzz warned him he only had three tries left. Despite being in the open air, Blurr felt distinctly trapped. He turned and fled to his own room, barely aware of his fingers punching in the lock and passing inside. It was only when the door had fully closed that he really came to himself.

Panting harshly, he pushed back against the door, allowing himself to slide down its firm surface and sit on the floor. He hadn’t felt that kind of fear for weeks. Lost in his business, he had almost forgotten it was possible. The darkness of the room felt good. He wanted to let it swallow him.

“Blurr.”

He screamed, immediately covering his mouth to muffle it as he registered to whom the voice belonged.

“Well, well. Should I always expect to be greeted so enthusiastically?”

 Blurr uncurled, still not feeling well enough to stand. Across the room, hovering somewhere above his vid screen chair, glowed the singular red orb of Shockwave’s optic.

“I’m…I’m sorry, sir.”

There was not much more he could say. The light tilted somewhat, and he could imagine, in the darkness, Shockwave’s enormous antlers cocked to the side.

“I know. You have been under such pressures, lately.”

He sighed lowly, and then the light rose, indicating he’d stood. Blurr was impressed his ceiling was able to meet the challenge.

“Come here.”

Without thinking, Blurr stood, stumbling, half running to meet him. He hugged himself tight to a thigh, shuddering hard. One of Shockwave’s hands encircled his back, holding him close.

“You broke into my apartment.” It was not intended to chastise. He was sickeningly grateful for the Decepticon’s presence.

“I witnessed your altercation in the hall,” hummed Shockwave, petting him, “who is your neighbor?”

Blurr exhaled shakily, rubbing his face into the tank treads.

“I-I don’t know his designation. He’s just out there, all the time, smoking and…I don’ know. I don’t like him.”

“Neither do I.”

Shockwave shifted, indicating his intention to move, and Blurr reluctantly disentangled himself from his leg. In what passed as silence, he allowed himself to be guided into his berth room. Shockwave ducked low to cross through the doorframe.

The window was already shuttered and dimmed. Blurr could not remember the last time it had been open. Long before his accident, surely.

“I will ease your troubles.”

Unable to fit fully on the berth, Shockwave sat back on the floor, using it as a rest for his spinal column and spreading his legs invitingly. With little prompting, Blurr nestled himself between them, hands in his lap. Despite his mood, he was already heating in anticipation. He felt it should make him sick, but it didn’t.

“Good.”

The panel between his legs parted, and his spike rose between them. Blurr, already somewhat familiar with the territory, immediately moved to press his lap closer, bending down. Breathing warm air on the head, he cupped his hands around the base, slowly tracing the thickly edged paneling.

“Very good.”

In response, he moved a little faster, fully stroking along the length now. He wanted to shut down his processor, revel in the sensation and nothing else. He wanted this, the feeling of a hot spike between his legs, Shockwave puffing coolly above him. No worries, no doubt, just pleasure and praise.

“Open your panel.”

He did, shifting his hips upward to allow for some contact between them. The angle was cramped and complicated, but it didn’t matter, he could do it, anything to keep his mind from what had just happened out in the hall. Curling even further in on himself, he licked the pointed head of Shockwave’s spike, just beginning to taste prefluid collecting at the slit. Shockwave purred softly.

Then they were moving, a hand cupping his waist and lifting him, and he let himself be lifted, going limp as a drone. Shockwave sat him on his hips, just above his spike, valve lips spreading around the wider length from above. Easily slipping into the pattern, Blurr wrapped his arms around Shockwave’s broad waist, rocking his hips back and forth into the pressure. The ridges caught against his external node, and he saw sparks.

“Oh, sir,” he whimpered, burying his face in Shockwave’s midriff, “it’s so hard. It’s so hard.”

“I am aware,” said Shockwave, a little smug.

“No, I mean,” he cut off in a trembling moan, “I mean it’s so ha-hard to keep secrets. It’s so hard to be scared all the t-time. I know it’s my job to keep them, I do, and I’m normally so good at it but… I’m so, I don’t know how I can, ahh…” his hips jerked faster, lubricant leaking down over Shockwave’s spike and splattering messily on his floor. Shockwave hummed sympathetically.

“I know that secrets in the field and secrets in your personal life are two very different things, little one. You will, in time, find it easier.”

Blurr shuddered against him, close to overload.

“How long? How much longer are we, ah, are we going to do this? I mean it’s barely been a lunar cycle since I started working again and it’s so hard already, I don’t even have any friends and it’s hard, everyone is so nosy and noisy and, and, and!”

He cut himself off, back arching as he came. Shockwave watched in silence as he thrashed, patient despite his still burning arousal. Finally, Blurr stilled somewhat, leaning heavily into his chest.

With the care of a surgeon, Shockwave again maneuvered them together, this time laying Blurr gently on his back and curving over him. The already darkened apartment dulled to crimson beneath his weight, until he was all Blurr could see and feel. Staring up at him dully, Blurr allowed his helm to loll to the side, arms beside them, wholly submissive. Gripping his thighs together, Shockwave thrust his spike between them, keeping contact with his valve, beginning the same, slow pattern of rutting he always adhered to.

“In time,” he whispered, “it will be easier. In time.”

Blurr was again stimulated to arousal, thighs burning where Shockwave’s spike ground against them, wet and glistening with his lubricant.

“Come inside me,” he begged, “please, please, please, Shockwave please!”

His words fell on deaf audio receptors. He twisted and moaned, trying his hardest to please him, as though his desperation alone would be enough to prompt Shockwave into a state of feral need, convince him, somehow, the break his placid veil and penetrate him fully, but it did not.

He came when Shockwave did, wracked with spasms as transfluid spurted thickly down his front. Above him, Shockwave groaned softly, the barest of sounds, and it almost sent him into another overload, overwhelmed with feeling. Shockwave let him go, sitting back on his haunches, rumbling deeply with satisfaction. Blurr’s cooling fans thrummed.

“Blurr,” said Shockwave, so quietly he almost missed it, “you need not worry. Things are changing, and soon secrecy will no longer be a necessity.”

With that he rose and left the room. Blurr could hear him move about in the flat, and then the rush of the shower. He did not move. The ceiling in his room was not surfaced, like the one in the med ward had been, but still he found himself searching for little imperfections in the metal, drawing imaginary lines and patterns between them.

Shockwave reentered.

“Come.”

Without waiting for an answer, he picked Blurr up, holding him to his chest in one arm and, hunched over, making his way back to the wash rack. He seemed to like washing Blurr, though Blurr himself always tried to assert that he was fully capable of self-maintenance. He was unsure whether Shockwave was drawn to it as a form of care or a manifestation of his pride; Blurr, clean and pretty at his side.

This time, though, there was no argument. He placed Blurr in his lap again, sitting flat against the tile, and worked a rag gently between his plates, popping the shower head off its hook and cleaning out his inner thighs, his valve, making him squirm anew. Blurr pressed his head back into the blackness of Shockwave’s body and off lined his optics, determined, for once, not to think.

* * *

 

 It was dark and Blurr didn’t want to go home. He surprised himself by missing the days of endless desk work. There was very little now to excuse his loitering. He had reviews to fill out, of course; stock of the week. It was not enough.

One thing he had not been made clear on was his ease of access to the rest of Fortress Maximus. Before, he had had nearly Prime level clearance. Since his demotion, he had no real idea if he was now restricted to areas he had once traveled regularly or not. His deliveries rarely took him deeper into the building than the office floors, and those only required the permission of the Autotroopers on staff.

He was pleasantly surprised to find the training courses out back were not guarded at this hour. It was embarrassing enough imagining being locked out; he did not need the added pressure of being watched and likely questioned during his potential failure.

But failure it was not. The gates parted easily at his touch, his old passcode apparently valid still. The courses were dark, like the rest of the world at this hour, but he remembered where the lights were even after all his time abroad. There had been little need for the Guard’s track in his life once he had begun his real work in the Intel. Division. Travel and training were all the same then, a neat bundle of work and schooling he participated in each time he was assigned a mission.

There was a familiarity about the feeling of synthetic gravel beneath his treads that gave Blurr a startlingly deep sense of inner peace. He allowed himself, for a brief moment, to stand perfectly still at the starting line and take in the sensation. Though the surrounding seats were empty, the lights brightened the room enough to give some sense of audience, not uncomfortably but welcoming, as though he could expect any klik now a chorus of cheers to echo through the field.

Crouching low, Blurr ran the textured flooring between his servos. The starting kneel came easily to him, intuitive as it was designed into him. Velocitron bred bots with speed in their sparks, but for Blurr it ran much deeper. He had won his scholarship into the Delta Academy of Military Pursuits in a race. He had met his first lover on the track. The money required to make the extensive journey between his home world and Cybertron was acquired in sport. His reputation, for better or worse, was built by racing.

It had been so long since he had allowed himself this purest of pleasures that he found the memories made him ache.

His engine fluttered quietly and he was gone. The track vanished beneath his feet, blurred to a reddish streak in his visual feed. And yet every minor abrasion in the surfacing, each individual chip of material, the barest of abnormalities in the painted lanes was obvious to him, as if he were hardly moving at all and simply observing the set itself. He passed his starting point before the echo of his beginning burst had even faded from the stadium walls. Still, he gained speed, not quite at the halfway point between his inner-city limit and his full throttle. There were no other participants to watch, no hurdles to leap over. The track was his.

Five times around and he had memorized the dimensions of the field to their fullest. Ten and he was confident he could run the course backwards. By thirteen he had fully let himself go, optics shuttered, vents blasting, totally engrossed in the movement. The air sang as it parted around him, a noise indescribable to his peers on this slow world, understood by few in the winner’s circle in the colonies. Unlike any physical plane he had travelled yet, this was truly a home to him.

Blurr couldn’t stop himself if he tried. The pain of his new life, the life that had begun since Longarm had first asked him who else he had informed of the Decepticon spy’s true identity, fell behind him like the speck of a city tower on the horizon. He could leave anything behind, if he tried hard enough. He could outrun anything.

When his legs tired, he transformed mid-step and continued by tire. His new body was not used to the difficulties of sharp turns and excessively long travel. He had once run across the galaxy, but in his current state of health he could only persist so long. Three cycles after he began his trip, he felt himself slowing. Four, and he was trembling with the effort, beads of condensation forming and then burning off in wisps of steam that fogged the air.

Fifty three point eight kliks later, and he stopped himself, transforming once again as he slid across the starting line once more. There was a time and a place to push his luck, and it was not now. He knew better than to risk damaging himself so soon after his release from the med ward.

It did not feel like a failure to concede to exhaustion. Even as he slowed to the inevitable halt, his spark soared. _This_ is what he was made for. _This_ is where he belonged. A joy so full he felt he might burst welled up inside his chassis, and when he finally did fall to the ground he did so in near-fits of laughter, quiet and halting and real. He shuddered and shook and spilled over with mirth, longer than he would have thought possible, longer than he could remember having done in his entire function.

Then he opened his optics and saw Cliffjumper.

He sat up straight. He stopped laughing. He stared, statue-still in disbelief.

Cliffjumper swayed a little, clearly uncomfortable at having been noticed. He was leaning heavily against the wall of the track, just by the door. In his right hand he clutched a bottle, dark green and nondescript. It was obvious he had been there a while, both by his pose and the puttering crawl of his engine. He had been watching Blurr in his rapture, in the middle of the off cycle, drinking.

“What are you doing?”

Blurr stood. His legs shook but he stood, straight as a bolt, and all of the anger and fear and pent up abject dysphoria in his system solidifying into a single, wicked point aimed straight at Cliffjumper.

“ _What are you doing!_ What the _Pit_ do you think you are doing here, watching me, alone like this, and how _dare_ you!”

Obviously taken aback, Cliffjumper raised his hands, trying to stiffen his pose and failing. Blurr stalked towards him, raising a finger as if to scold him but carrying enough rage to seriously menace him.

“You have been nothing but awful to me since my return, awful, and I have been so good, unbelievably good at pretending not to care but do you know what? I do care! I do, Primus I fragging do and I will not stand for it anymore!”

He pushed into Cliffjumper’s personal space, having crossed the room so quickly that there was nothing the secretary could do to distance himself from the approaching tirade. He backed uselessly into the polished metal behind him, optics blown wide with shock. From this range Blurr could smell the acrid fumes of half-processed high grade wafting from his vents, see the brightness of overcharge in his lighting. Cliffjumper looked like hell and it pleased him to no end.

“I demand an apology! Better yet, I demand an explanation! Why, yes, that’s it, why have you been following me? Why do you care, what do you even get out of messing with me like this? Am I just that interesting or is there some special reason I merit your attentions because I am this close, this close do you hear me, to filing a harassment complaint!”

“Yes! Primus, yes, Blurr, I…” Cliffjumper surged forward, reaching for him with his unoccupied hand, a look of agony crumbling his features. Taken aback, Blurr stumbled over his own words, halting mere inches away from the object of his wrath just in time to catch himself as Cliffjumper practically fell onto him.

“I’ve been trying to keep it, keep it down because I didn’t, I didn’t know what to think but…”

“What-get off me!”

Blurr tried to pull back away from him but Cliffjumper pursued, clinging tightly to one of his forearms. As swiftly as his happiness had turned to anger, his rage dropped low into fear. He had recognized the signs of drunkenness long before in Cliffjumper, had known him to pull slightly more than legal from the company funds from time to time, and now his processor began to spark new connections as scenario after scenario bloomed inside it, that Cliffjumper was far more gone than he had originally thought, that something premeditated was afoot, that he needed to _get out now-_

“Blurr, I’m so sorry. I’m so-sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

Cliffjumper’s vocalizer crackled and reset, emotion bleeding heavy through his words.

“I n-need to tell you…I should have old you before but he was always, always there…”

“What? What are you talking about!”

Their awkward struggle ceased. True concern beginning to dawn inside Blurr. This was not an attack. This was something else entirely.

“I know I shouldn’a been drinking but I was…scared to tell you.”

He was trembling. Blurr cupped a hand over the one restraining his wrist and felt the tension burning inside his plating.

“Cliffjumper?”

“I didn’t mean to follow you but I saw you go in.”

Blurr’s touch seemed to alert him to his prolonged contact with the agent. Cliffjumper relinquished his hold, stumbling back a pace and wiping one hand over his forehead. He took a long swig from his bottle.

“I don’t know you that well. I didn’t wanna scare you but I just, I just do that.”

He seemed genuinely miserable.

“Should… should we sit down?”

Unsure how to proceed, Blurr nearly flinched at how rusty his comfort seemed. It had been a long time since he had felt true pity for anyone outside himself. Thankfully, he was spared the embarrassment by Cliffjumper’s inebriated state, and simply received a sullen nod in response.

They moved to the lowest tier of seating, Blurr nervously taking his place and then gesturing to the seat beside him. Cliffjumper hesitated.

“Maybe, maybe just you should sit. I think just you should.”

Feeling rather small next to Cliffjumper’s agitation, Blurr complied silently. The secretary paced a moment, opening and closing his mouth several times with no sound.

“It was, it was a long time ago,” he started finally, not looking Blurr in the eye, “and I didn’t know then. Nobody did.”

“Know what?”

He hoped his mounting panic did not show in his words. He was still half convinced this was going to end in violence. Cliffjumper was not known for his level-headedness.

“That you were missing.”

Blurr perked.

“What?”

“You weren’t, you weren’t written out of the files yet. You were supposed to be on that organic planet, with the bridge repair crew, we all knew that. We couldn’t have, we couldn’t have known you’d gotten hurt yet.”

Cliffjumper’s pacing did not stop, though he did slow occasionally, gesturing roughly, as if to force the point out.

“When they did find you, down the chute, I just, Primus, I just knew.”

He covered his face with his arms, sighing shakily.

“I knew it was my fault.”

“Cliffjumper,” he began, tentative and wary, “I had an accident. You weren’t involved. You weren’t even there.”

“No!” shouted Cliffjumper suddenly, turning on Blurr so quickly that he nearly leapt from his seat in fear.

“No, you didn’t! Because I saw you!”

Blurr’s systems froze.

“…what did you see?”

With great effort, Cliffjumper spoke.

“You. Your, your shell. Your body. He came right up to me and just, Primus, just gave you to me, like garbage, like trash, he handed you to me and I never realized until you came back…”

The fierce energy that had animated him but moments before again drained to make way for sorrow, pressing down on his so heavily that Blurr worried he would collapse.

“ _Get rid of this sensitive material,_ he said. Handed you right to me and I didn’t even question it. But when I saw you, when I saw you come back, saw your color, heard about what they said had, had happened, I knew.”

“Who?”

Blurr surprised himself with his level tone. An old coolness settled over him, stilling his shakes.

“Longarm.” It came out as a mere whisper.

“Longarm gave you to me. I wasn’t sure but I, I looked up your medical files…I know it’s not legal but I saw the pictures...it was you.”

“Longarm.” Blurr repeated the name as though it were a foreign word.

Cliffjumper came to him then, kneeling in front of where Blurr sat, taking his hands in his own in an unintentional mirror of Blurr’s attempt to calm him earlier. Blurr could feel the drunken wave of his energy field push against his own, sloppy and desperate.

“I don’t know what he’s done to make you, keep you quiet, but I’ll stop him. I can stop him for you. With you. We can get him, Blurr. It’s, it’s the least I can do, after I, after I helped to put you down there.”

Blurr looked down at him. Cliffjumper swayed, stricken. He seemed so small, so helpless and terrified, even with his declaration of commitment.

“Cliffjumper,” he said, slowly as he could, “are you sure about this?”

“Yes.” Cliffjumper nodded emphatically.

“Yes. It was you. I know it was. You don’t have to be scared. I want to help you.”

“I see.”

Blurr squeezed the hands that held his.

“We need to talk more about this. Not here, though.”

Still nodding, Cliffjumper almost smiled, as if Blurr had just relieved him of a great burden.

“Tomorrow, when you’re sober, I’ll let you know when and where. Is that alright?”

“Yeah. Yes.”

Cliffjumper looked into his optics with a deep passion.

“To-tomorrow. Tomorrow. I should probably leave.”

“Yes, you should.”

Mumbling, urgent, Cliffjumper stood.

“Tomorrow.”

He jerked his way from the field, turning to give Blurr a meaningful look every few steps. Blurr watched him go, lips tight. He listened to the door slide shut, then the soft echo of the ones leading into the hall after. It was nearly the next work day now. He only had a few sparse cycles before light.

Instead of going home, Blurr stood and made his way towards Longarm’s office. He knew it would be a long wait on the hard hall floor before anyone showed up to let him in, but that was fine because he needed the time to think.

He had a very important decision to make.


	8. Interlude 4: Flutter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shockwave discovers all is not lost.

Shockwave traced his claws over Longarm’s desk, shifting aside any leftover files from the day as his private communications screen situated itself in the center of his field of vision. Things were finally calming in the streets below, the people forgetting their initial shock and fear at the very idea of Decepticon retaliation. Megatron’s cell was still cooling, but they had already begun to rebuild. What simple creatures.

 The meeting had been planned several lunar cycles in advance, and he had expressly requested no interruptions during this time, so he was surprised when Cliffjumper began ringing his desk speaker.

“Cliffjumper, I believe I had expressly asked for privacy, had I not?”

There was a brush of static on the other end. He could easily picture the little bot’s anxious shifting.

“I, I know that, sir, but there’s something you need to see.”

Already shifting back into his disguise, Shockwave sighed lowly.

“I do not mean to give the impression that I am angry, agent Cliffjumper, but I do hope this is truly worth my time.”

When the door slid open, he was surprised by how distraught his secretary really looked. He was of a turbulent personality at the best of times, but his expressions of upset generally fell more alone the lines of anger than fear.

“What is it?” His tone of concern was flawlessly executed. Cliffjumper immediately responded, relieved at his supposed change of spark.

“It’s agent Blurr, sir. He’s…been found.”

“Pardon?”

This _was_ news.

“In the incinerator, sir. The trash compaction section was jammed, and they sent someone down…they wouldn’t have noticed except that his spark was…”

Still met with silent shifting, Longarm grabbed him be the shoulders and shook him slightly.

“Agent Cliffjumper, I need you to speak clearly now. What state is agent Blurr in currently?”

“He’s alive, sir! It was bad, really bad, but he’s alive.” Cliffjumper was shocked by his intensity, but he did not care. If the agent was not incinerated, then that meant he was potentially salvageable. Which meant Shockwave needed to act, quickly.

“Where is he being treated?”

“General Med, but, sir,” Cliffjumper broke off, uncomfortable, “I know you two were, uhm, close, sir, but they don’t even know if he will, ah, pull through. They aren’t letting anyone see him.”

Pulling back, Longarm let his face fall in thought.

“Do they know what happened?”

Shaking his helm sadly, Cliffjumper knocked a fist against his thigh.

“No. I mean, as far as we knew, he was in the field, wasn’t he?”

Nodding slowly, Longarm remained still. They stood together in silence for a moment, Cliffjumper practically squirming at their closeness.

“Alright. Thank you for informing me, Cliffjumper.”

Cliffjumper nodded again, looking away.

“Please let me know as soon as new information is released.”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned back into his office, sealing the door behind him immediately. He rechecked the locks. He turned off the speaker. Taking his true form, he realigned his personal communicator, setting up the lines and once again seating himself.

“Has there been…trouble?” Blitzwing, as always, attempted to retain tact. Soundwave, however, was too young and under trained to recognize his place.

“Lord Shockwave: thirteen point seven kliks late.”

“Well,” said Shockwave, leaning back in his chair and tenting his claws, “there has been a development.”


	9. Act 5: Crescendo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blurr helps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodness me, I can't believe I went so long without updating! My apologies!

It felt odd to be back in Longarm’s apartment. Somehow, at this point, it seemed more familiar than his own, more welcoming, and that was an upsetting thought.

“What distracts you, little thing?”

Shockwave circled him slowly, optic bright.

“It’s just,” Blurr squirmed in his seat.

“It’s weird being here after all that’s happened.”

Then he shuttered his optics, a barely suppressed moan wriggling from his throat. Shockwave purred.

“I believe I can rid you of that discomfort.”

He shifted his claw’s angle against Blurr’s valve, tickling down the center with the barest of touches. Blurr bucked, grasping Shockwave’s unoccupied servos to his chest tightly.

“Why do you always haave to-have to make it sound so, hah, smooth like that?”

“Smooth?”

With bored, careful motions, Shockwave circled his exterior node.

“Y-yes, smooth, like, you never just say what you mean which is both confusing and-and frustrating!”

“Well,” drawled Shockwave, “I certainly wouldn’t want that.”

“See, you’re doing it again, you-!”

Shockwave dug his claw inside in one clean thrust, shocking Blurr into a small overload. He remained still and patient as the tremors worked their way out of Blurr’s chassis, holding him steady with his other hand.

“Ah,” he tutted, “look at how worked up you’ve gotten yourself.”

Too oversensitive to properly respond, Blurr snorted haughtily. He broke off a moment later, face contorting with pleasure as Shockwave began to bounce him on his claw. He reveled in the lax position he’d been allowed, curving back against the plush berth pad, curling his fingers into it as charge once against crackled down his circuits. A particularly sharp twist had him moaning, high and reedy, and he answering burst of heat from Shockwaves vents prompted him to do it again. The shallow illusion of power flitted through his spark in glittery wisps, and he squirmed harder.

“Mm,” Shockwave purred, “you are willing, aren’t you?”

Too distraught at the prospect of losing his pleasure to argue, Blurr bit his tongue. Another turn of his servo and he was beyond coherence anyways.

“I’m afraid, however, that you are eighteen point three percent dryer than required for our practice today. I am going to need you to increase your lubrication output by at least that much, preferably more.”

“Wha-how am I supposed to-!”

Shockwave’s secondary claw positively stabbed into his external node, coinciding perfectly with a jab of his other servo currently buried in Blurr’s valve, penetrating back deep enough to slip just between the isrised petals of his overspill tank, and Blurr convulsed in his second overload so far. His optics and mouth flew open in unison, a surprised and ragged yelp all that accompanied his cumming, thighs trembling uncontrollably as a jet of lubricant spurted out around Shockwave’s digit, managing to spill far enough that a large portion of it dribbled off the berth onto the flooring.

The claws kept pushing, and Blurr kept shaking, until his hands ripped from their violent grip on the berth pad and instead flew to Shockwave’s hand, desperately trying to push him off as the burn became too intense. He did not even seem to notice, thrusting until Blurr was sure he was going to go offline as sparks flew from his vocalizer.

Then he withdrew.

Curling onto his side, Blurr’s helm lolled, optics blind, a small trail of drool escaping his panting mouth.

“Th-th-th-!”

“Yes,” Shockwave’s calm voice drifted down from somewhere above, “I think that will do nicely.”

Blurr jolted as something blunt pressed against the lips of his valve.

“Sh-Shockwave I, ahh!”

Whatever it was was rubbing rather insistently. Blurr had enough wits about him to know it wasn’t Shockwave’s spike, because it was far too rounded and not quite the right size, but it nudged against him so insistently that he had to spread his legs wider, shifting his ups back against it. He pressed his face into his hands, once again burrowing into the pad beneath as he tried to muffle his whining breaths behind his quivering fingers.

Despite his submission, his legs were still stacked upon one another, hips tilted at a sharp angle, and one of Shockwave’s claws had to snake between them and lift them apart to gain further access. Blurr groaned, static lacing his voice, and then gasped sharply as the object dipped, just barely, inside of him.

“Wha-what is tha-ha-hat?”

It came out more as a whine than he had intended, and he again hid his face, panting, distraught and hot beyond belief. Above him, Shockwave vented, apparently affected as well, although to what degree was up to debate.

“In short, a plug.”

A few more presses and the tip breached him. Already, it was wider than Blurr found comfortable, and his ventilations stalled momentarily as he felt himself stretch.

“If I ever do intend to penetrate you, as I fully do, I assure you, I must prepare you. It would be a shame if you were to,” he forced the plug in several inches at once, “tear.”

Blurr cried out plaintively, hips jerking away from the painful pressure.

“I don’t- I never said i-Sh, ah, it’s too big!”

“Clearly not.”

Shockwave pinned him with one hand, hardly exerting any effort as Blurr flailed about, trying to gain purchase somehow, drag himself away. Even as he began to panic, the plug sank in smoothly, his calipers adjusting, just barely, to fit the intrusion. Removing his hand from the device, Shockwave observed him coolly.

“You look very pretty this way, Blurr.”

The pressure having decreased, though only by a pinch, Blurr stilled his struggles. He felt winded, as if the plug inside him had not only invaded his valve but his entire lower central network.

“Don’t…don’t talk like that…” he was barely able to speak, much less think, words leaking out in wet, breathless pants.

“Why?” said Shockwave, mild as can be.

“Does it bother you to know that I find the sight of you being pleasured erotic?”

Trying to move his arms again, though not quite fighting Shockwave’s grip, Blurr hissed.

“Y-yes! Yes, of course it do-oehs! You, you’re a, a…”

“Decepticon.”

Shockwave hissed the word like an insult, leaning in so close that Blurr could acutely feel his heavily pulsing field.

“You are interfacing, willingly, with a Decepticon. You submit yourself to me, time and time again, and I take my pleasure from you, just as you so brazenly desire.”

The words shot straight to Blurr’s core, and his valve rippled around the plug. The heat was unexpected and he tried to squirm again, spark feeling swollen, overfull with energy.

“Even then, I do not allow myself to take you just yet, and you hate that, don’t you? I take my time with you, I take good care to keep from damaging you, and that only makes you burn hotter, doesn’t it?”

“Sh-stop it.”

“It does, Blurr, do not deny what I am so openly shown time and time again. You want me, in the basest, most crude sense of the word. You clamp your thin little thighs around my spike and you _beg_ for me.”

“Stop it!”

“You beg for me, because that’s what you really want, isn’t it? You don’t want kind whispers in the dark, gentle touches that make you overload in a quiver. No, that is not what has kept you up at night, these past cycles, is it? You want violence. You want pain. You crave the thought of me ripping you apart inside. It makes you _soak_ yourself, just to think about, doesn’t it?”

Blurr thrust his hips backwards, vocalizing something torn between a moan and a sob. Still, Shockwave restrained him, refusing to move the plug but refusing to allow him freedom.

“Take it out! Take it out, please, take it out, take it out, take it out!”

 Shockwave grunted softly, pressing his hand down harder until Blurr thought he might really be crushed. His nerves shot through his fear, drawing another cry from his lips as pleasure and panic twined together. It was dark in the apartment, too dark, and he couldn’t see the walls or floor or anything but Shockwave, couldn’t feel anything but the _squeeze_.

“I don’t believe I will.”

_“Please!”_

Blurr squealed, spinal strut straight as an arrow.

“Remove it yourself, if you are so inclined.”

Shockwave’s voice was so dangerously low, dripping with heat and venom. Blurr was shocked, once again, by the sheer amount of power he felt, pressing down on him like a physical force, like Shockwave’s hand, packed tight and hard inside the frame above. He was scared but…

_“Shockwave…please…”_

But Shockwave was right.

His optic bore into Blurr’s back, something sharp and solid trailing along the exposed wires of his neck.

“I said: remove it yourself.”

Energy rolling through him like his very spark had become a generator, Blurr seized, valve responding like a tool to Shockwave’s words. He forced his calipers down, twitching spastically as the strain sent bolt after bolt of pleasure through his systems.

At first his efforts seemed in vain. He strained until colors bled into the corners of his vision, valve clamped down so hard he felt he might break, and then, just as his energy began to drain, something shifted. He gasped, intensity charging him up once again, second wind calling as his attempts redoubled in determination. His teeth ground together, thighs pressed tight now that Shockwave had relinquished his hold. Never in all his function had he been forced to do something so fine-tuned with his body, so utterly, totally degrading.

The very thought made him swell with ecstasy.

The more he labored, the more the plug shifted, and each miniscule touch of movement pushed waves of sensation through him. he calipers felt as though they would give at any moment, that he would break himself or lose all strength and be confined like this the rest of the cycle, maybe longer. He was at Shockwave’s mercy, and there was little doubt in his mind that that concept ran thin.

Perhaps, he thought, exhaustion drawing great billows of steam from his vents, he would be left here. Perhaps Shockwave would simply hold him down, pressing and squeezing, until he was able to muster the energy to expel the plug himself, no matter how long it took. Perhaps he would lay here, compressed and stuffed full, begging and pleading, as long as Shockwave liked, his prisoner, a twisted eroticization of his original fear.

His valve clamped down, hard, and the plug burst free in a shower of fluids. Overload slammed into Blurr like the walls of the defense grid, so intense that he could not even writhe, stiff and still as his vocalizer burned out, optics wide and unseeing.

Shockwave released him completely, sitting back to watch as curls of electricity scampered across his frame. When Blurr was finally able to process again, he was still there, silent, staring at Blurr with something too obtuse to fathom, certainly not in his current state. He wanted to speak but the words wouldn’t come, whether it was due to his overclocked processor or completely wrecked physical state, he couldn’t be sure.

For a brief klik, he was terrified he would be forced to continue. Shockwave had not relieved himself, not even released his spike from its housing, but when the large hands finally did return to his frame, there seemed to be no ill intent behind them. Maneuvering into a more comfortable position on his back, Shockwave lifted Blurr to rest on his chest, dripping and dirty as he was, engine purring the soft chord of a spark content.

Perhaps it was in his best interests to remain online a while more, because he was still so frightened and so excited and so utterly horrified with himself, but there was no possible way he could deny the heavy weight of his recharge program as it bore down upon his body. As Shockwave stroked his back, he slipped into darkness, even as his tanks flipped inside his stomach.

* * *

 

The corner of Fortress Maximus where Blurr had been exiled to was always quiet, but today it was unusually so. Though he knew it wasn’t likely, he felt as though the office became damper and more hushed as the day went on, each visit between his desk and his in-building deliveries dimmer and graver.

Three deliveries, consecutive and, annoyingly, not processed simultaneously, showed up over the course of a cycle labeled “for lab 23317”. Perceptor’s workspace. He did not like to contemplate their contents.

Normally, multiple packages that arrived on the same date but at different times would simply be differed, whatever arrived first being delivered then and the rest waiting until the next scheduled pick up, which could be as late as the next day. Blurr worked so quickly, though, that there was little reason for him not to go back and forth like that other than his own annoyance with the unsteady outer city packaging network. So, like it or not, he found himself entering the lab three times in the same morning.

The first two trips led him to a vacant laboratory, but the third time he was greeted by a rather nonplussed looking Perceptor. He had apparently just come in and was beginning to seat himself behind the table Blurr had arranged his earlier deliveries on. Upon seeing the agent’s entrance, however, he stood again.

“Agent Blurr.”

“Perceptor,” he said, really wishing he had shown up a few kliks earlier and missed him, “I wasn’t expecting to see you here, although I suppose that’s a little dumb, since it is your lab and all, but I guess since you weren’t here the first two times I delivered to you today it wasn’t that unreasonable for me to expect.”

Perceptor did not even flinch.

“Yes. Well. You may put that one with the rest.”

He gestured to the other boxes. Moving a little uncoordinatedly, Blurr almost tripped over his own stabilizing servos trying to get to the table.

“A-alright then, I guess I’ll just be going then, it was nice seeing you, uhm, Perceptor, sir, goodbye.”

If it weren’t for his good manners, he would have made it out the door before the scientist could react. Unfortunately, he was raised too well for that, and before he had even made it to the threshold Perceptor was reaching out.

“Wait.”

Stiffening, Blurr tried not to let his shoulders sag.

“Yes?”

He turned on point, hands balled into fists by his hips.

“I have something for you.”

Oh, Primus.

“Yes, sir?”

Not really wanting to seem rude but also held back by discomfort, Blurr edged back into the room, stopping a few feet from Perceptor’s desk. Whether his concern was noticeable or not, Perceptor simply reached behind one of the packages and retrieved a flat, locked box.

“For Councilor Botanica.”

“Oh.”

He accepted it in silence, looking it over carefully. Perceptor watched him with a blank expression.

“That will be all.”

Embarrassed to have lingered, Blurr stuttered out a similar goodbye to his earlier one and stumbled out into the hallway. There was no address on the box, so he had to assume it was destined for her apartment, just like his last delivery. He couldn’t say he was pleased to have met up with Perceptor, but he was glad at the chance to see the Councilor again. Her last tip was still funding the occasional after work indulgence.

When he returned to his cubicle, the very last thing on his mind was Cliffjumper.

“Blurr. Agent Blurr.”

Standing beside his desk, Cliffjumper looked far more nervous than Blurr had seen him sober. Instantly, he mentally catalogued every item there, trying to remember if it was as he’d left it. Cliffjumper was not a thief, but Blurr honestly had no idea what to expect from him at this point, and the jolt of fear that had passed through his spark upon seeing the secretary was an undeniable sign of his growing mistrust.

He had hoped to avoid the other agent until he could properly wrap his mind around a response, but it appeared fate had other matters in order.

“Cliffjumper. What can I do for you?”

Blurr had not intended for his response to sound so clipped, and mentally slapped himself when Cliffjumper flinched. His optics were dulled and static, a clear sign of the systems burnout his overcharge must have left him with. Though it wasn’t in his nature to slow down if avoidable, he could not surpass his growing pity for the bot.

“…are you, that is, are you feeling better?”

“Uh, yeah.”

They stood still for a moment, the weight of the previous night falling heavy between them. Unable to stand the pause, Blurr broke through it, moving to place the file for Councilor Botanica on his desk amid a mountain of other data pads.

“Excuse me, I just, I have other things to be working on.”

He wasn’t exactly in a hurry, rearranging things he already knew the order of simply to look busy. Cliffjumper rubbed his hands together anxiously.

“Look, we need to talk.”

Blurr stopped shuffling, but could not bring himself to look up just yet.

“I know.”

“What I said last night, I, I really meant it. It wasn’t just the drink.”

Remaining frozen, Blurr pursed his lips.

“I know.”

“I really, I really do want to help you.”

Then he looked around, a sudden fear in his optic, as if he only just realized they may be, most certainly were, under surveillance. He was normally such a solid character, and Blurr began to wonder if his current disheveled state was simply the result of his stressful evening or if he was under the influence of something stronger. It was not a pleasant idea, but it was by no means outside the realm of realistic possibility. The Elite Guard was rife with illegalities only permitted by status.

Blurr looked at him with the utmost sincerity.

“How?”

Cliffjumper smiled.

* * *

 

Councilor Botanica was waiting outside when he arrived.

“Oh, ma’am, I apologize if you were waiting long you see I got caught up in a little bureaucratic thing back in the office although I guess you probably get excuses like that all the time and don’t want to hear about it so I guess I’ll just be giving you the package now.”

He presented it at an arm’s length, face a mask of seriousness fit to fully contradict the rushed lilt to his words. Botanica held a hand over her mouth and laughed.

“I think that was an apology?”

She accepted the data file. Self-conscious, Blurr brushed imaginary rust from his breastplate.

“Uh, yes, Councilor. You weren’t waiting too long were you?”

“Oh, not at all!”

She was scrutinizing the package, as though testing for damage, but her voice was light. Perhaps it was her bizarrely organic alternate form, perhaps it was simply her nature, but the Councilor had an air about her that made one relax in an instant, nearly stutter at the wink of her optic. Blurr could see why her personal affairs were such a scandal with the Tower bots; everything about her glowed with a romantic luster unbefitting of the ruddy pith of the streets.

“Well, now that everything is in order, I have other deliveries to attend to so-!”

“Wait.”

A gentle hand alighted, bird-like, on his arm. Blurr started.

“Councilor?”

Botanica beamed.

“I want to give you another tip.”

Blurr’s brow creased. Her kindness had been an oddity the first time, but now seemed almost forced.

“I was late.”

“Not compared to your predecessor!”

She lightly bounced her fingers off his shoulder, passing back to her foyer console just as she had before.

“Ma’am,” he said, taking a step back, “I don’t expect this kind of treatment. You don’ have to tip me. It isn’t even technically allowed.”

“I know,” she smiled, “so we have to keep it as our little secret.”

Discomfort pooled inside his chest.

“Ma’am,” he shook his head, but found himself extending his wrist anyways.

“I just want to show my appreciation.”

Her cable hit home. Blurr monitored the transfer with dumb surprise, almost disbelief. That someone with so much influence and power was choosing to bestow a gift upon him only _after_ his demotion seemed ludicrous. But, there they were, the credits winking smugly at him from his personal account all too real.

“Thank you, Councilor.”

She looked at him with an open face. As startling as her continuous donations were, her honesty was even more astounding. Blurr felt his shoulders slump, humbled.

“Really,” she said with a wink, “it’s my pleasure.”

* * *

 

Longarm wrapped his arms around Blurr from behind.

“You are tense.”

Immediately collapsing into his embrace, Blurr nodded.

“Everything is so…complicated.”

“As you have said.”

Turning to face him, Blurr set his jaw.

“If you believe I am complaining too often, you should just tell me so I know when to shut my mouth.”

Clearly surprised by his testiness, Longarm almost laughed.

“I do not ever want you to keep things from me, dear.”

The term of endearment threw Blurr off a moment. He squinted, trying to discern if the word was used in jest. Longarm’s smile fell. He touched Blurr’s face.

“How could I say you were important to me if I did not care to hear about your feelings?”

“Easily,” Blurr shrugged, “if you were lying.”

Pulling them both back, Longarm spread beneath Blurr on his couch, and then continued to spread, arms thickening around Blurr’s waist.

“You are a tough one aren’t you?”

Shockwave trailed a claw down Blurr’s spine and felt it melt into his touch. The routine was old, and Blurr felt perfectly comfortable in smoothing himself to fit the Decepticon’s curves even during a debate. His optics shuttered with a sigh.

“You like it, though. You and your weird moral code. You like it that I don’t trust you.”

“I do.”

They allowed their bodies to work out the differences between them, silent and still for longer than Blurr cared to measure. It was not dark yet, but he had no desire to continue with the day. It was easy to forget the time in a windowless home. Easier still to forget the outside world.

“Is Cliffjumper still bothering you?”

Having almost been in recharge, Blurr took a klik to process the question.

“Agent Cliffjumper?”

Perhaps his drowsy tone dampened the edge of fear behind his words. Shockwave rumbled beneath him.

“Do not pretend to be oblivious to his actions. He has a fixation with you.”

“I think that’s a little strong of a term.” Blurr snorted tiredly.

“I do not.”

Shockwave craned his neck to stare. Blurr pushed his face into his chest and breathed heavily.

“He’s a troubled bot. We knew that long before I even knew who you were. Everyone knows that. It’s why he isn’t a real agent.”

Recognizing that his slumber was not going to come soon, he pushed himself onto his elbows, stroking nimble fingers into the ventilation slats on Shockwave’s chest plating. Shockwave watched.

“Is he going to become a problem, Blurr?”

Tracing little concentric circles, Blurr smiled dully.

“Is that a threat?”

“Not for you.”

He sat back, reaching out to grasp one of Shockwave’s antennas lightly. The tiny shiver the action elicited did not escape his perception.

“Shockwave,” he said, “take me to the berth.”

“Oh?”

Shockwave too lifted himself, silent and all-encompassing as a ghost.

“Has our conversation so exhausted you?”

Blurr spread his thighs wider, allowing the burning metal of his crotch plate to make contact with Shockwave’s waist. His optics flitted upwards.

“Not in the slightest.”

* * *

 

He hated eating out. Not because of the fuel; he wasn’t a terrible chef, but he wasn’t exactly experienced. Academy dorm food was more his speed, and speed was of the essence. The waiters never understood him, occasionally got angry with him. He knew if wasn’t their fault, never really his either, but it was frustrating for everyone involved and he would rather do without.

Self-service joints seemed like the better choice, but were actually worse. All the crowds, the throngs of people pushing and shoving against each other to get to the dispenser bars, moving so slowly and packed so tight he could find no way to navigate their loping, hunched circles. Blurr had found them stifling before, but now the idea was simply out of the question.

The arrangements he had made with Cliffjumper were for a smaller, danker bar that he usually dared to peruse, but the cover was necessary for several reasons. Firstly, it was doubtful they would see another agent there, not without a damn good reason. Secondly, because if something did go wrong, they would be easily identified and remembered. The Guard sigil carries a wide path of influence, not the least of which fell in with the street patrols. He could see that he’d been noticed. A bot with a rather loud paintjob and a sporty frame had been eyeing him since he’d walked in, although it was clear he thought he was being crafty. Judging by his looks, he just wanted to see Blurr with a little less plating, and he let him go on thinking he was going unseen. Safety was the first priority here.

Blurr was surprised at how short his wait ended up being. He had hardly seated himself before the secretary, looking wide-eyed and wild, shouldered his way into the dive. There was no awkward waving; he saw Blurr instantaneously and moved in without a second glance around the room. For someone as well trained and supposedly paranoid as Cliffjumper, it was surprising he took as little stock of their fellow patrons as he did. Blurr filed away that observation for later.

Having already ordered himself a drink, Blurr buried his anxious expression in his cube as Cliffjumper took the seat across from him. The booth he had chosen was nice and secluded, though not so tucked away as to arouse suspicion. Though, honestly, by the smell of the place, it was doubtful they’d assume it was matters of State they were discussing in a dark, hidden corner. Even so, he took care to make a quick sweep of the faces of every other bot within viewing distance before turning to his guest. No one seemed particularly interested, but that was never the truth. His badge had earned him a yolk of speculation the moment he’d set foot in the neighborhood, much less the bar.

“You weren’t followed, right?”

Cliffjumper twiddled his fingers nervously.

“I mean, _he_ doesn’t know you’re here, right?”

Blurr hated the way he stressed the word, as if he couldn’t immediately understand who was being talked about.

“No, he doesn’t.”

Diplomatic as ever, Blurr cleanly placed his cube on the table, wiping his lips on a face rag. It wasn’t the bar’s. To expect cleanliness in a place like this was to expect the light of Primus in a Decepticon war camp.

“And he doesn’t know about…”

Blurr started to shake his head, but Cliffjumper wasn’t looking, twisting his hands as he forced the words out.

“…about our talk, the other night?”

“No. He doesn’t know anything.”

“Good, good.”

The bartender was looking over at them expectantly. Cliffjumper didn’t’ seem to notice, so Blurr took the initiative to wave him over.

“Another of the same, please.”

Speaking slow was an effort, but it allowed the sense of normalcy to prevail. Cliffjumper seemed heavily uncomfortable during the interaction, but Blurr didn’t care. If his is what it took, so be it. When the drink arrived, he leaned over the table conspiratorially.

“So?”

Holding up one finger, Cliffjumper downed in drink in a single chug. Had he not already been painfully aware of his colleague’s proclivities, Blurr would likely have been impressed. Wiping his chin on the back of a hand, Cliffjumper nodded slowly.

“You need to tell me about it.”

“What?” said Blurr, knowing exactly what he meant.

“About… _him_. About what he did. I need to know what happened before I can be sure if…if we’re doing the right thing.”

They weren’t doing anything yet. It was a little surprising to Blurr that he had come this far while still not entirely sure of his directive. All of this erratic behavior did not sit right with him, and he wondered, not for the first time, if he was being set up.

“Cliffjumper…” he pushed his glass around with his fingertips, worrying his lip between his teeth.

“I don’t, I don’t know about this. What you told me before, I mean, about what you’ll do-!”

“Blurr,” Cliffjumper reached across the table so suddenly that he jumped, “I promised you I would take care of this. I promised.”

His sincerity was intense and Blurr was no match for it.

“…what exactly do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

He squeezed Blurr’s hand, the thick shelf of his chest tilting the table downwards.

“I want to know everything he’s done to you, everything that happened to make you, make you quiet and, and if he’s done anything else.”

Though he had known full well what to expect when he came here, the question still took him off guard. He had to consciously stop himself from looking back across the room again, as if someone would hear them and know what was meant.

“He…”

He had done a lot of things. A lot of things Blurr only half knew about, didn’t want to know.

“He tried to kill me, like you said.”

“I knew it.”

Cliffjumper breathed the affirmation as if he could hardly believe it himself. Their hands were trembling, locked together in a fit of conspiracy.

“He told me I could keep my spark if I didn’t tell. That’s why I…” shuttering his optics, he looked away. Across the table, he registered a gasp.

“Oh, Blurr.”

“It’s alright. I mean, it isn’t, but, you said you could help me.”

Hope twinkled in his gaze and Cliffjumper swelled with purpose.

“My idea still stands. I mean, you, you know what he’s capable of. Do you think it will work?”

Smiling weakly, Blurr clasped a second hand around their already threaded fingers.

“I do.”

They swirled out of the bar, into the alleys of the southern grid. It was the middle of the off cycle, the darkest point of night, and the streets were intermittently lit with dank parlors and merchants carts. Blurr hung from Cliffjumper’s shoulder guard.

“You are so brave, to help me like this, to speak up.”

He stumbled like a drunk. Cliffjumper put an arm around his waist to steady him.

“Thank you so much, I don’t know how much longer I could have gone on, like this, with him.”

As they moved further into town, the city grew quiet. Sensible bots recharged for miles and miles above their heads.

“He hurts me, you know.”

Blurr turned into a dimly lit side street, hurling himself against the wall and tugging Cliffjumper down on top of him.

“Come home with me, please.”

Even shorter than Longarm, Cliffjumper stared with mollified shock into Blurr’s breastplate.

“Blurr, I, I didn’t mean…”

“Oh, Cliffjumper.”

Blurr’s fingers pulsed behind his neck, hand urging his wrist forward until it curved around burning metal. He stilled, heating. Blurr’s hips bucked imploringly into his forced grasp.

“Take me home, I’m so scared…”

Vents in the alley spat steam. Cliffjumper parted his lips to speak but found himself wrapping them around the corner of Blurr’s chest instead, trembling hands tracing the thin waist writhing before him as if he were afraid of breaking it. Delicate film, precious. Blurr moaned luxuriously.

“This way, this way.”

The apartment complex was new and bright, light shining from upper floor windows like a beacon to the Well. They kissed in the lift, tangled this way and that across the landing. Blurr curled into each and every touch as though he had never seen kindness before, so small and thin and needful. Cliffjumper was floored.

“I, I didn’t know you lived in such a nice neighborhood.”

Blurr’s optics dipped low, mouth open, lip wet.

“Come inside.”

There was a table directly by the door, a desk maybe, and across the room he could see a wide couch.

“Come inside, please.”

Into the berth room. Cliffjumper followed like a drone, a slave, Blurr still speaking in quiet tones and gentle touches, a vision in the dark. He fell back onto the berth, thighs spread. Cliffjumper came to him.

“Blurr, I…”

“I think that’s quite far enough.”

Pain blossomed through the back of his helm. He pitched forward, the flooring cheerily opening wide to swallow him.

* * *

 

Blurr watched little flecks of his own yellow sick circle the drain.

“You did very well, Blurr.”

Bracing his hands against the wash rack wall, Blurr spat some of the remaining flavor into the stream of solvents. The room was slowly coming back into focus, walls remaining still where they stood.

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

Shockwave did not move from his position in the doorway, and Blurr was thankful for it. He was not sure how much more pressure he could take and remain standing right now.

“What are we going to do now? With him, I mean. What do we do with him?”

Shockwave’s claws clicked against his thigh.

“There are two options. The first is that we keep him here, alive, until we can find a way around his knowing. The second is-“

“No, no there aren’t.”

Blurr braced himself against the wall as though the floor below was heaving.

“There aren’t two options. There is only one. We keep him alive. That is the only option.”

For a moment the only sound was the churning of the shower.

“Alright.”

Shockwave, finally, moved into the room.

“As you wish.”

He fell upon Blurr like a shadow.

“This is something I can come back from,” said Blurr, curling in on himself as Shockwave wrapped around him, “this isn’t it, this isn’t the end, I’m still, I still know what I’m doing.”

Claws kissed his hips.

“Do you?”

He let the question go unanswered, turning into the embrace with open arms and closed eyes. The wash was still warm around them, but Shockwave’s greater mass blocked the majority of the spray, leaving only hot steam and trickling droplets on Blurr’s plating. He ached for touch, for Shockwave’s comfort. It was a mess, the very creature who caused him anxiety now soothing him down like a raw wound.

Together, they lowered to the floor. He pushed his lips to Shockwave’s waist, to each and every one of his digits as they searched his armor for the fault lines and sensory bundles they knew so well. Squirming, Blurr nipped lightly on the corner edge of Shockwave’s massive breastplate. No thoughts, no words.

Allowing himself to be maneuvered into Shockwave’s lap, Blurr moaned quietly, panels parting. Shockwave encased him fully, as if protecting him from some unspeakable horror. Blurr accepted it, welcomed it, continuing to suck on his chest as he angled his hips backward, accepting a claw inside himself almost immediately. He was wet, so much wetter than he should have been in light of the circumstances. The added shock of backup system programming responding to his distress was more intense than he’d expected, much more lucid than any time he had felt it before. Panic sent every nerve into overdrive, and the only available outlet was this, here and now, crisis personified.

Shockwave nuzzled into his helm, spike releasing fully pressurized. Pushing himself lower, onto his hands and knees, Blurr attended to it, kissing and sucking around the tip and shaft as the angle better opened him to Shockwave’s claws. He had been stretching, working himself open more and more for Shockwave’s pleasure, and now the tip of a second digit nudged inside him and it fit, painful, burning, perfect. Running his tongue down the seam of a heavy ridge, Blurr shuddered.

Steam fogged the room so badly that his vision began to glitch, condensation running down his optics. Blurr’s haunches dipped back and forth, liquid heat pouring down from above and mixing with the lubricant streaming down his inner thighs. Shockwave’s secondary panel trembled a bit, parting with a snap.

Not needing any more provocation, Blurr slipped his unoccupied hand down to trace the path of sensory cable between his spike base and the top of his valve. Shockwave had never before exposed this part of himself to Blurr, and while he doubted the Decepticon’s self-control was in any way compromised, he feared that moving in without direct orders would be against the rules. He didn’t want to upset Shockwave. Not after what they’d done. It was too much to think about.

“It’s alright,” Shockwave’s voice floated down through the mist, “you may touch me.”

He did, shocked by the clean, smooth curve of Shockwave’s valve. The lips were short, clipped almost, and overly neat. Still, they did not seem unused to stimulation, and he pushed his fingers between them enthusiastically. Like his spike, it was a larger implement than with which Blurr was used to interacting, but intuition did not lead him astray. It was a valve like any other, and when he drew his fingers tight around the external sensory node, Shockwave shivered like the rest.

The claws inside him twitched up and he gasped harshly.

“Too much, my darling?”

Unnatural words from an unnatural voice.

“Not enough,” he hissed, burying his face at the base of Shockwave’s spike, “not enough, sir!”

Shockwave surged hard inside him and Blurr responded in kind, shoving three fingers inside his spacious valve, practically biting the unforgiving plates of his spike. Shockwave grunted softly, not moving in any way other than the continuous, heavy shifting of his claws. Blurr trembled.

“More please!”

“No.”

Shockwave’s spike throbbed in his hand even as he spoke the words, calipers spiraling down around Blurr’ tiny fingers.

“I am…beyond pleased that you desire me so strongly, but I will not stoop to harm you.”

But Blurr wanted it to hurt. He wanted it to feel raw and wrong, like a punishment.

It didn’t.

“Primus, Primus,” chanted Blurr, working his fingers deeper into Shockwave. His open calipers could flare no more, screeching as Shockwave’s claws pushed and stressed the metal behind the mesh. His nodes were swollen and alight with charge, and the mess crackled between them, around the drain. He could forget this way. He could lose himself here.

Because Shockwave would always be there to take care of him.

“Primus has nothing to do with this,” Shockwave murmured, “it is I who gives you such pleasure.”

Blurr came.

* * *

 

Work came too easily, the office too quiet. Things should not have felt so normal, but they did, and nobody seemed to notice Cliffjumper was even gone. It took three days before someone else came to deliver all the packages that had piled up in his wake and Blurr felt liberated to ask.

“Extended vacation leave,” the bot mumbled, leaning in quickly to add, “I hear they found bottles of strong stuff in his office, you know, Nightmare Fuel and the lot. He was an addict, I think. Deeper stuff than that, even.”

He nodded solemnly at Blurr, as if Blurr had somehow confirmed his beliefs, shuffling off muttering. It was a net way to wrap things up, and Cliffjumper had certainly made things easy for them. Blurr continued his day in a haze of guilt, running laps around the building after each delivery because he needed time to work things out but the stillness of his flat held no answers. Shockwave could not meet with him in private again for at least a half lunar cycle, and for once he was desperately unhappy by their separation. He needed to know what was happening, how Cliffjumper was, if he had woken up.

Longarm caught him in the hallways a few times and informed him with veiled words that he had no need to worry and should get some rest, but Blurr was beyond rest. It wasn’t until the end of the work week that he finally found respite from his nightmare. A familiar name crossed his desk in the form of a large and lightweight package, suspiciously bow shaped. Rodimus Prime held an office more for show and mail delivery than anything else, and he knew it would likely be empty, so he was not vexed, initially, by his current desire to resist all Cybertronian contact. It would be swift an efficient.

He had forgotten how beautiful the lift to the upper levels was. He had not seen need to use it since his recovery, largely because the Primes and military quarters used an intern system that left little need for physical deliveries by lower level staff, who were not as carefully screen for security. Blurr was, for better or worse, above that scrutiny, and was still permitted to access these offices on his own should the need arise. It had not until now, Rodimus being notorious for not only refusing intern assistance but being refused the right to it by Ultra Magnus himself. Young and spirited warriors did not, apparently, have the social graces that the Council wanted the general public to believe they had.

The upper floor was, as Blurr had suspected, empty and glistening with fresh wax. It was a well decorated establishment once you left the lower sector, more glamourous than really necessary. It was part of their Autobot culture, according to the Magnus, created during the Third Great War and preserved as a reminder of those glory days. Blurr could not help but wonder, with his knew knowledge, if this was the bourgeois society Shockwave had been raised in. He could understand the revulsion, though it embarrassed him to realize it. Ducking his helm low, he strode carefully but no less briskly down the hallway and to the left, hoping he could drown his thoughts in the echo of his footsteps along the open space.

A large window at the end of the hall overlooked the upper quarter of the city, the Towers gleaming in the distance. Blurr was so taken by the view that for a moment he did not hear the difference between his now silenced steps and the slowly departing pair somewhere behind him. When he did turn, realization dawning, the figure was already turning a corner away from him, far beyond where he stood. Had he had the mind for it, Blurr could have easily caught up with him, but as it was Blurr simply reacted.

“Rodimus?”

His call came back to him several times, the hallowed halls returning only sound, and the Prime was gone, but not before Blurr had noticed a small discoloration on his spoiler. Or perhaps it had been the whole thing? He was too far for Blurr to make out, optics still recalibrating from the purple light of the noon skyline. Turning in to the office, Blurr bit his lip to stifle a giggle. Lime green was a terrible color for Rodimus. He could only hope it had been the result of a prank. Knowing his team, it would not be unusual.

When he realized he was laughing it was already too late, and his knees collapsed out from under him. On the pink tile of Rodimus Prime’s office, Blurr, beaten and scarred, a secret felon, laughed. The package slipped from his hands and he let it lie where it fell. Mirth, real and petty and wonderful, was his entire world.


	10. Interlude 5: Bond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shockwave is made aware of a larger picture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to remind you all that the Intermission chapters all take place in the past. I know it's kinda obvious but since I haven't updated in a while I just wanted to make sure you all remembered!

The office had been slow and quiet, more so than usual, and Longarm had made his way out into the common offices to oversee the slow desk work being done. This had quickly deteriorated into a rare moment of pleasantries with Blurr, who had actually no reason to even be in today, but showed up anyways and had been helping Cliffjumper with some filing. Catching him at a moment away from the secretary, however, their conversation easy flowed down other paths until they were both sitting comfortably in Blurr’s normal cubicle sharing a cube of the lower grade allowed in office spaces that he had brought in as a light topper.

“Do you ever think about The Unmaker?”

It was not as though their talks had never breached deeper than a filmy layer of small worded chatting, but it still took Longarm off-guard. Blurr didn’t seem at all like he was building up to a joke, however, and looked back at him with prying eyes.

“I don’t mean in the sense of considering one’s own mortality, since everybody does that, making it a moot point and irrelevant to us in particular, but about Unicron himself, as a being.”

Leaning back in his seat, the Prime pondered.

“I suppose I have, although I do not know exactly what context within which you are framing the question.”

Taking another sip of his drink, Blurr shrugged. He seemed a little embarrassed to have brought it up, but, true to form, pushed onwards.

“I just mean, everyone knows Primus is real. He’s the ground beneath our boots, he’s always been there, giving life and sustaining life, but I’m an off-worlder, a colony bot, and so the idea of living on his surface has always been really strange to me, even though I’ve been here a long time, and it just got me to thinking about them as a whole, Primus and Unicron, and how our contact with Primus is supposedly always so constant, but Unicron is more of a myth if anything.”

Though he spoke nonchalantly, Longarm recognized the tinge of nerves in his tone, just enough to show he truly meant what he said. It was not as though he expected Blurr to spout random lies, but his conviction was interesting and a clear sign of his feelings on the subject, however complicated.

“Primus creates us,” he said, speaking carefully, “but I do not believe the bond extends beyond there. Bots cling to the idea that he follows us throughout our existence, but I do not find that to be true. He makes up, sparks us into being, and then we are on our own.”

Blurr swallowed, nodding as he took it in.

“They’re just…bots?”

“Correct.”

Kicking at the carpet a bit, Blurr wheeled his chair closer.

“But what about Unicron? He’s still out there somewhere, isn’t he? And if he should choose to resurface, to return here, what would that mean? If he came to devour our world, what would we do? Would Primus open up and fight back? Would that kill us all?”

“I doubt Primus is capable of that anymore, but if he was, I do believe those not quick enough to evacuate would indeed perish.”

He dug his pinky into the energon, digging out a tiny fleck of kibble that had fallen in the cube.

“Cybertron is not what it was in the old days. We would most likely defend ourselves against him.”

“Against a god?”

Blurr leaned in, almost joking.

“We have the firepower, perhaps. Do not think I myself and the Guard as a whole have never taken this into account. Beyond my own calculations, there are entire basement areas devoted to the computing of random variables that could affect our plans for defense in that position. I calculate it would take only between four to ten failures before we would execute the succeeding plan, at this point.”

“Four to ten? Is that supposed to be reassuring, because it certainly is not, I mean four to ten is enough time for someone with the supposed might and power of Unicron to completely devour us! And that’s only in calculations!”

Breathing out a long sigh, Longarm leaned back against the desk, tipping his chair a bit and bracing himself on his elbows.

“We would evacuate and move on within the commonwealth. There are many more planets than four to ten. We would succeed eventually.”

He passed the drink back to Blurr, who took it with a small nod of thanks, sipping gratefully. The momentary silence was peaceful, only punctuated by the faint snapping of shelves and Cliffjumper from several aisles down. Blurr turned to him again, helm vents opening in a soft rush of warmth.

“They say that if you destroy Unicron, you take his place.”

Longarm pretended he didn’t notice Blurr’s chair scoot closer. The agent leaned in, blind to all but that within their private universe. Longarm spoke.

“Blurr,” he said, voice the deepest of chasms, “how would you see me if I were a god?”


	11. Act 6: Imprecise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blurr works for a conversation he doesn't want to have.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy!

“I was like, desk work, really? I mean not that I’m ungrateful but actually, yeah, I am ungrateful. Desk work!”

“We all have to start somewhere.”

“Yeah but _desk work!”_

As Blurr proceeded down the hall, he began to recognize the louder and more irritated of the two voices. The other he already knew; Ironhide was a soft and tolerable presence when alone, boisterous and thick headed when not, and Blurr had already learned that their personalities were very much incompatible and to leave things be.

“I’m sure it won’t be for too long.”

“Pshh. Like, maybe only five stellar cycles or something. Oh, yeah, I’m feeling _really_ lucky right now.”

Honestly, it was not a voice he had expected to her ever again. Rounding the corner, he finally managed to get a visual on the scene. Bumblebee, bright and obnoxious as ever, slammed a file casing a little too hard down on Cliffjumper’s desk, shifting some others already lying there out of the way haphazardly. Ironhide noticed Blurr first, waving lazily as Bumblebee continued his work on destroying every bit of neatness in the entire hallway.

“Good morning, Agent!”

Apparently his own designation had escaped the orange cadet, but Bumblebee’s optics lit up with instant recognition as he turned on the newcomer.

“Blurr!”

“Yes, hello Bumblebee, Ironhide.”

Not exactly feeling up to this confrontation, Blurr nodded briskly, shifting the report in his arms. The sight of Cliffjumper’s desk being appropriated was unsettling and he wanted to continue with his journey and get it out of his mind. Unfortunately, Longarm’s office offered little sanctuary, because as he attempted to skirt around the pair without further question the doors slide apart and the Prime himself stepped out to block his path.

“Ah, Agent Blurr! I thought I could hear you out here.”

Ducking his head, Blurr swallowed a smile.

“I was just coming to deliver the weekly report Sir when I noticed that you have a replacement secretary and Bumblebee and I have met once before so it was a little surprising I guess you could say I apologize if it bothered you to hear us.”

Of course, he knew it wasn’t his own voice that would have disturbed Longarm Prime. Bumblebee had been going on for so long and so loudly that he had been able to detect his presence from six halls away.

“Yeah, about that.”

Bumblebee swung his legs over the desk in a move of showy athletics, slipping in between them without any pretense of respect for authority.

“What happened to you? Last thing I saw, you were stuck to those clones floating into the space bridge! I didn’t even think you’d come back!”

Again, Blurr looked away, this time out of real discomfort rather than anything fluffier. Longarm reset his vocalizer conspicuously, stepped between them so that he could again face Blurr full on.

“Agent Blurr did come back to report, but was unfortunately taken by an accident and has not been in the field since. It makes sense that you two would not have met.”

Unsure whether he was grateful for the intervention or not, Blurr nodded again, setting his jaw.

“Right. Yes, of course. Don’t take this the wrong way Bumblebee but I had completely forgotten about your crew in the commotion.”

It was only a half lie. He had considered them before, but it had been of low priority. Turning back to his main concern, Blurr offered the data pad up.

“The weekly report?”

“Ah, yes.” Longarm took the file, shooting him a quiet look.

“I’ll accept the rest in one moment.”

Bumblebee was looking bored and distracted, the attention having not been on him for nearly a klik.

“How are things settling in for you?”

Scoffing, Bumblebee shrugged.

“I don’t see why I have to be here. No offense or anything, buddy, but really? I helped take out Megatron! The Megatron! You’d think they could just promote me already without all the stupid desk jockey nonsense!”

Shaking his hands dramatically, Bumblebee wailed in exasperation. Longarm smiled, a touch of sympathy bleeding into his gaze. Blurr watched intently, realizing exactly what he was witnessing.

“Oh, Bumblebee.” He put a reassuring hand on the minibot’s shoulder guard, sighing.

“This is just a stepping stone. And you won’t be here long- just until Cliffjumper is back.”

“I told you so,” interjected Ironhide, standing largely forgotten by the desk.

“I know, I know…” Bumblebee grumbled, shoulders slumping.

“I guess I can be glad it’s you.”

“Indeed.”

There was a moment of supposed solidarity, and then Longarm turned back to his agent.

“The report?”

* * *

 

“We need to keep watch on him.”

Blurr licked a slow swath up the inside of Longarm’s thigh, optics flickering up.

“What do you mean? On Bumblebee? He’s just a cadet.”

Longarm pet the back of his helm, air hissing from his vents.

“Something is off about his presence here. He was not the secretarial replacement I requested.”

“So what? Things change.”

Blurr nuzzled against his crotch plate, feeling the heat from behind it and rubbing more insistently as Longarm refused to relent.

“Not like this.”

Shifting his thighs wider, he reclined more, and Blurr pushed in closer, eager to feel as much body heat as he could around him.

“I requested Mirage. He had no other work opportunities at the moment and, as a non-Guard or Intel worker, only requires half-price payment. The request was changed the night before last, right before Bumblebee was notified.”

“That is v-very last minute of them.”

Blurr kneaded his fingers into the thick plating on his thighs, oral solvent beginning to mess his chin as he worked the seams with his tongue.

“Longarm wouldn’t have known this, of course, but I did. Somebody went into my personal files and changed the data.”

His toe piece slid to Blurr’s groin as he spoke, gently, almost absent mindedly running along his inner thigh. Blurr bucked into it, redoubling his efforts.

“You-you think that somebody has intentionally planted Bumblebee here?”

“Yes,” he swallowed, stroking his chin as he thought, “it is possible. While on Earth his team intercepted some of my communications with Lord Megatron. While my true identity was never exposed, it is possible that they have developed suspicions, or that Bumblebee himself has. He is impulsive and slow but has resources and allies.”

“Who would want to do that, though? Spy on you, I mean.”

The foot between his thighs stroked particularly hard and Blurr jumped, banging his nasal ridge into Longarm’s crotch.

“I suppose we will have to figure that out ourselves.”

Blurr looked up sharply, about to say something nasty as he rubbed his face, but all words were silenced as Longarm’s spike finally extended before him and he had something better to do with his mouth.

* * *

 

He felt like he should be having more trouble than he was recharging, so he kept himself up. He drank until he was almost overcharged, watching the channels switch from dull to duller as the off cycles progressed, listening more closely to the hush of tires outside in the dark street than anything else.

Cliffjumper was fine. Shockwave would not kill him and lie to Blurr about it. He couldn’t. What would be the point of it except to stall the inevitable, Blurr’s discovery? He banged his helm back against the couch, rubbing his arms as though cold. How could he have ever come to this, he wondered, stoop to assisted felonies to save his own bumper.

That was a stupid question, though; ever since he’d woken up he had been causing problems for the Guard. This was no different.

Turning off the vid screen, he set his cube down and went to sit in the shower instead. He wished Shockwave was there with him. Dipping a hand between his legs as the solvent streamed down, he pretended that he was.

* * *

 

“So, I dunno, it’s just kind of underwhelming. If you know what I mean.”

Blurr nodded absently, typing. Bumblebee apparently had very little to do, despite now possessing what Cliffjumper had described as a spark-crushingly weighty workload, and he spent a lot of time bothering whoever was in the main office. He fiddled with a tablet, likely checking the news or program schedules. Blurr did not have the spark to completely ignore him, but he did not stop doing the actual business he had to attend to. He was on thin enough ice as it was.

“It’s like, you’re out there in the bigger universe and then you come back and Cybertron is just…Cybertron.”

Bumblebee rested his hip against Blurr’s desk, optics wide.

“You must understand that at least a little, right?”

There was an odd quality to his tone, as if it was less of a question of fact than reality, and that he wanted to be reassured of his own truths. Blurr did not deny him.

“I do. I’m not exactly made out for a desk job either, if you hadn’t gathered.”

Bumblebee’s smile grew raw.

“Well, yeah, but that’s just temporary, right? Until you’re well enough or whatever.”

Blurr stopped typing.

“Your post is temporary as well, isn’t it? I mean, it’s a starter position and you are a starting cadet, working your way up the ladder until you become a full-fledged agent. We all go through that at some point, even if some move at a different pace than others. You shouldn’t be so worried about it. You have plenty of time to ascend the line.”

Silence stretched between them, but not unpleasantly, Blurr checking over what he’d written and Bumblebee breathing softly. The days were getting longer as the panic died outside, people already having forgotten why exactly they were so excited in the first place. There hadn’t been an execution in over a lunar cycle, a time period that felt eerily short for Blurr but was apparently enough to bore the rest of the world into indifference, and there was little private messaging and espionage going in or out of the building.

Bumblebee kicked the desk leg.

“I guess I just expected being an actual part of the system would be more. Like, when you’re out there actually fighting Decepticons it seems so obvious how it’s all supposed to work, but back here it’s like…what does any of this slag matter?”

He kicked it again.

“I guess that sounds dumb.”

Blurr stared up at him with an odd weight in his gut.

“I don’t think so.”

Before anything else could pass between them Arcee strode into the room. She was still an unusual sight around the office, and both Blurr and Bumblebee jumped as she spoke.

“Good morning! Have either of you signed Rodimus’s data packet yet?”

Slightly relieved for the change in pace, Blurr swiveled his chair to face her.

“I’m afraid I have no idea to what you could be referring.”

“Nah,” said Bumblebee, leaning in to examine the data pad she was holding. Arcee smiled a little sadly.

“It’s for Rodimus Prime’s return to the office! He’s officially one hundred percent cosmic rust free.”

Bumblebee shuddered in mock fear of the mentioned infection, but to Blurr this was entirely new information.

“I’m sorry, cosmic rust? He had cosmic rust?”

“Yes,” she held out the pad, a list of cheery names next to a small generic message about health and frame, “Decepticon attack during all that nastiness. It’s been a long and painful road to recovery.”

Frowning deeply, Blurr watched as Bumblebee eagerly took the pad and inserted the data cable from his wrist into its socket, signing with a small beep and a wink.

“I just delivered something to his office the other day. I had no idea he was in the med bay. I thought that…”

Arcee’s grin showed teeth.

“Oh, the bow? That’s from Kup. I was with him when he bought it. I’ve never met the Prime myself but he seems so young for such a responsibility. Kup says he’s a good bolt though so what do I know?” She laughed.

Blurr took the pad when it was offered to him, signing it absently. Something about this did not sit well, although he wasn’t sure why. There was a stirring in the back of his processor, a flash of green. Arcee placed a soft hand on his own.

“You got it?”

“Yes ma’am.”

She thanked them and turned, checking something else on the pad while Bumblebee ambled back to his desk. She was almost out of the room when Blurr shot up to her, face a firm wall but hands anxious.

“Wait, excuse me but wait a moment please!”

“Agent?”

He knew she was reading him easily but it didn’t matter. Arcee didn’t do field work anymore, was practically retired. She didn’t know him and he didn’t’ know her. It would go uncommented on.

“Do you know when Rodimus is coming back to work? Is he having a, a party or something or is that packet just going to be sent to him remotely?”

Nodding, understanding, she flipped through a couple of pages on the screen.

“He’s, ah, he’ll be back in five solar cycles. There is a party, but I don’t know too much about it; I was asked to go around as a courtesy but, like I said, I don’t really know him.”

She brushed some dust off her audio receptor.

“Kup and I were good friends, back in our day. He’s close to a lot of the younger Primes, and he called out a favor. You know how it is.”

Her optics flashed with a bit of sorrow and Blurr realized she was referring to something deeper than what she said out loud, but he had no idea how to respond. Instead of questioning her further he nodded and thanked her and returned to his console, feeling unfocused and cramped. Bumblebee shouted something playful at him after Arcee was gone and Blurr pretended not to hear him.

* * *

 

“Can I see him?”

Longarm rounded his desk and sat down, only looking back up at Blurr once he was comfortably situated, fingers steepled to support his heavy gaze.

“No.”

Blurr managed to remain largely still but his fingers raked against his thigh guards.

“Sir please, it is very important that I, it’s just I-!”

He didn’t know what to say and broke off, turning and jotting over to the window to stare down at the city below. The light was pink in the sky as their distant star twirled below the axis. Everything had a sort of passing beauty that was incredibly enjoyable so long as you didn’t take much time to look at the figures below the skyline. Blurr paced before it.

“I want to know he’s alright. That we- you didn’t hurt him too much. And I want to, to explain? To him? What’s going on, I want to let him know that, that he isn’t going to die or…”

“You want him to know that you’re a good person. You want to clear your own conscious with him.”

Shockwave’s voice was unrelentingly cold, even coming from Longarm’s warm smile. Blurr withered.

“Don’t- don’t- don’t make me out to be the bad one here! I’m not the villain, I just, I’m just a part of this! I didn’t want to be here, k-kidnapping people and keeping secrets from everything!”

“I did not want this either,” said Shockwave and Blurr whirled on him.

“What do you mean by that, huh, tell me, what exactly do you mean because if you dragged me into this without any real purpose other than your own monstrous desire to see others fail than why the hell did you? Why did you do this to me?”

He stalked to the desk but with every flood of words his resolve crumbled so that when he finally reached Longarm’s side he trembled on his thin legs and fell head first into him, desperate for support. He got it, thick arms pulling him into an embrace and helping him crawl pitifully into Longarm’s lap, a kiss here and there on his cheek and jaw and the lid of his optic. Blurr clung to him.

“Blurr,” he said, “I adore you. I feel so strongly for you it pains me to recognize, but I do not want to be here anymore than you. I want to be where I belong. I am a wonderful liar, but I cannot subsist on that alone.”

Blurr could not speak but he tried anyhow, whispering small disjointed questions and phrases into Longarm’s collar, which went ignored as he was stroked up and down. His spark ached inside him, and he pressed his chest to the waiting broad plain before him to put pressure on the wound. Shockwave hummed a tune into his receptor, and he listened as though his life depended on it. Finally he settled into the rhythm of the touches, voice quietened until he spoke no more, the thumping inside his chest seeming to synchronize with the moment.

“Can I at least speak with him?”

Shockwave sighed and Longarm stopped petting him, hand resting on his lower back. For a moment Blurr wondered if he had ruined everything, but then a finger turned his chin up to meet kind optics.

“I suppose. When the time is right, I suppose.”

“Thank you.”

It was unfortunate how easily the words slipped from his lips.

* * *

 

Slipping into the third floor corridor Blurr took a moment to collect himself. He could hear laughter echoing down the hallway and almost turned back into the elevator, gritting his teeth and pushing through it. Two cadets scurried past him, whispering to each other about legends and battle and Blurr turned the corner into the shifting sea of faces at Rodimus’s party.

He probably shouldn’t be here. It was only an excused absence for people specifically involved with him and his crew, and the few sneaking away were doing so on their superior’s watch. Blurr hardly knew what he was doing here, ducking uncomfortably away as someone passed too close. He and Rodimus had not been friends, really. He liked Rodimus, but they barely knew one another. Over the bobbing crowd he spotted the glimmering gold of a proud spoiler.

Rodimus stood tall and courageous but Blurr could see the signs of sickness still lingering in him. Red Alert had her hand on his shoulder, an act that was genuinely friendly but also a rather clever cover for support. He smiled and drank and talked animatedly but every few kliks he would sway on his toes, as if readjusting his balance calibration, and his optics looked dim and brittle. Blurr wondered if he was equally obvious in his insecurities, the way he still swallowed thickly as the elevator doors closed or paused to steel himself before going in the supply closet. Somehow he doubted anyone took notice.

He was surrounded by people and for a moment Blurr regretting this decision, not seeing how he would even get close enough to talk to Rodimus, much less ask the question he really needed to, but he pushed on and set his jaw and the pink and golds and oranges grew bright before him. When Rodimus’s face turned next it glowed with recognition and he raised a hand.

“Blurr? Is that you?”

Sidestepping the last mech to have his attention, Blurr nodded quickly, forcing a smile.

“Rodimus Prime, sir, it’s been a while. You’re looking very well for someone just out of the med bay.”

It was all very formal but Rodimus seemed touched, placing a hand gently on his arm and moving away from Red Alert. Blurr felt his smile becoming less forced.

“Well, you know what they say: you can’t keep a good bot down!”

And then he leaned in closer, face changing, and Red Alert turned away respectfully.

“I, uh, heard about your accident, too. While I was laid up. I would have sent you crystals but, well…”

He shrugged helplessly. Blurr’s smile dropped away all together, but he put a hand on Rodimus’s.

“It’s alright.”

He doubted Rodimus would have done anything had he been well, but it was a nice thing to say. He knew that, absent minded as he could be, Rodimus was well meaning. He flared his vents a bit, stepping closer still so their voices could mingle without being heard.

“This is your first day back, correct?”

Open faced, Rodimus nodded.

“I was in your office delivering something the other day-”

“The bow!”

“Yes, I was there and I, well, I thought I saw you. I thought you were at the end of the hall. Were you doing data signing or something before really coming back, or…?”

Rodimus shook his head no before the question had even finished, screwing up his nose in confusion.

“I didn’t even get let out of the ward before this morning. It’s only been two cycles.”

He could see the cogs really turning in Rodimus’s helm and so Blurr backed off, smiling once more and throwing his hands out wildly.

“I must have made a mistake,” he laughed, perhaps pushing it, “it’s hard to see who’s who when you’re running.”

That was a lie in several senses, but Rodimus bought it. Blurr could see everything when he ran because his sensors were calibrated for it. It was why his thoughts raced, processor in constant overtime. He took a step back, nodding and waving, and eventually phased back into the crowd.

He knew what he had seen, but not what it meant. It was not a good feeling.

* * *

 

Longarm urged Blurr to simply walk him home that evening, an idea which Blurr found both exciting and stupid.

“They’re going to recognize us. After all the work you put into keeping our relationship secret you think I can just skip on out with you one cycle and you think it won’t matter?”

Longarm’ secretive smile infuriated him but stayed his tongue.

“They won’t be seeing you and I, I promise.”

Blurr had fretted and puffed and waited exactly where he was told outside the building when he got off work but Longarm never came. Six kliks after his shift ended a wiry red bot with long legs and fingers approached him.

“Have you been waiting long?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Blurr didn’t look at him, gaze fixed on the door. He was still a little angry about Longarm treating him like a fool in the first place, and he had no time to suffer fools. The red bot smiled widely, revealing a row of sharp teeth, and in Shockwave’s voice said, “I apologize. I see that you are angry.”

Blurr stared at him and could not speak.

“Blurr,” the red bot purred, “Walk me home.”

Standing on wobbling legs, Blurr moved to his side.

“I didn’t know you could do that,” he muttered, keeping his optics on the yard around them as they began to walk together.

“It was easier when I was young,” Shockwave said, sounding pleasant and airy and entirely too calm.

“What if someone saw you? Did someone see you? Does anyone even stop to card bots when they’re leaving anymore?”

“Of course not. I changed in the downstairs maintenance closet after having already scanned out as Longarm.”

He looked at Blurr with dim optics.

“Does it bother you that much?”

“You could be anyone.”

“Indeed.”

It should have frightened him, but he found himself observing the totally uninterested and unscandalized faces they passed by and realized it didn’t.

“Can you turn into anyone? People I know?”

Shockwave shrugged, the red of his shoulders glittering in the day light.

“It is not easy.”

Normally they would have driven, but something about the pavement beneath his feet was nice and he wasn’t sure of Shockwave could just automatically have an alt form like that, another question he wanted to ask but withheld. What was nice was that the form’s long legs kept up easily and Blurr found himself slipping into his usual unencumbered pace and enjoying it fully, and after they had cleared the first few blocks from the Fortress Shockwave put a hand on his shoulder.

He had almost forgotten why he had been nervous in the first place when they arrived at the foot of Shockwave’s – Longarm’s – apartment complex. Staring up at the windowless exterior, Blurr remembered Cliffjumper, and the darkness, and the feeling of those thick red fingers curling around his wrists anxiously, and he shoved Shockwave’s arm off him and chose to take the stairs.

“Are you sure you are ready for this,” Shockwave said, touching his back as he unlocked the door, and Blurr glared at his feet.

“No, but I’m going to do it anyway.”

His voice shook and he pushed past Shockwave into the apartment, not bothering to flick on the lights. He was in front of the door to where he knew Cliffjumper rested before he had time to think and then he stopped, fists clenching and unclenching. Shockwave, back to his true appearance, loomed behind him. Blurr could feel his optic boring into him, see the red halo his shadow, and he grew furious but did not know why.

“you-!” he started, rounding on Shockwave with a finger like a gun, but Shockwave grabbed him, which he had not expected, and pulled him back away from Cliffjumper’s door.

“Stop!” and he was carried back, kicking and clawing and not quite yelling, and Shockwave threw him onto the couch harshly. He scrambled back to his feet but Shockwave threw him down again, crawling over to cage him. His true form did not fit the couch well, not like this, and he was half kneeling on the floor. Blurr, caught up in his rage, screamed, remembering that Shockwave had soundproofed the walls and feeling safe for it, digging his flat fingers into the mesh bare before the covering of his claws. Shockwave grunted and his optic burned bright and Blurr screamed again.

Shockwave’s spike was out and it rubbed up against his thigh heavily. Blurr laughed and licked a claw that strayed to his face before biting it as hard as he could, hurting his jaw more than anything, whining and howling as the spike rubbed again and again over his panel. He heard banging then, across the room somewhere, but it was drowned out by his own yell as his interface protocols finally overpowered him and his valve bared itself. Shockwave bent down and gazed at him, antenna touching his face briefly to taste and he licked them too. A claw pressed inside him and tugged up without mercy, stretching and pulling. His calipers ached from the training they’d worked on, but he’d learned to associate the feeling with overload and the hot turning of Shockwave’s spark that became so tangible when he was aroused and he spread his legs wider for it, helm falling back over the couch arm and swaying into the thrusts.

When the claws abruptly tore from inside him he screamed again, still angry but now more mad with lust than anything, and he reached down and furiously worked himself in their stead, ignoring a soft chastising grunt from above, and then Shockwave’s spike fell between his thighs and he could not continue without risking hurting himself. He clamped his thighs tight around it but snarled in frustration when he rippled, empty.

“I want something inside Shockwave please Shockwave _Shockwave-!”_

But Shockwave just huffed in frustration and rutted harder against him, holding him down on the cushions as he squirmed and cried. It wasn’t until Blurr’s desperation sagged from anger to begging that he pulled back lifting Blurr to perch on his hips as he stumbled to the berth room, depositing him on the padding and digging for a toy. Blurr rolled on his side, thighs squeezing tight against each other, and dug his fingers into the sheet as he returned to tugging on his nub, drooling and biting at what he could of the berth.

Shockwave was rough with him when he returned and he was glad for it because it kept him feeling justified in his mindless wrath. Hi legs were lifted off the bed and spread and another of those plugs pushed into him, huge and painfully perfect. He couldn’t tell if it was a new one or one he’d already mastered but he was so wet and resistant to pain at the moment that it slid in easily enough. He squealed between his mouthful of sheets and scrabbled at the berth pad as he was lifted further, forced onto his back so Shockwave could reinsert his spike between his legs and continue working himself to overload. Blurr was so stuffed he wasn’t sure he could keep his legs crossed but Shockwave grabbed his feet and held them together, keeping half his body off the ground and leaving him largely helpless.

The first thrust had him overloading hard as it ground the plug down into him, and every one after sent shocks through him until he could not tell if the overload had ever ended or if it was just being drawn through him again and again. Part of the ridges nosed his external node and he wailed, squirming and begging and cursing. Shockwave growled, genuinely, and Blurr gushed.

“You are mine,” he said, “you are mine, you are mine,” and then he came himself, transfluid covering Blurr’s chest and stomach in three slow shudders. Blurr kicked his legs uselessly and wiped some of it into his mouth, sucking at his fingers, dizzy and crawling with charge. Holding him still, like a draining corpse from a hook, Shockwave ripped the plug out of him and he overloaded again, squirting lubricant across Shockwave’s thigh.

Shockwave dropped him and sat, on the floor, fans churning deep inside his chassis. Blurr rolled around in his own fluids a moment, trying to regain his mind. He stood, fell as a shock of pain shot up his front, then stood again, slower this time.

“I’m still gonna-a-a…”

Shockwave watched him stumble from the room, no more. He was not going to stop him. Halfway through the living room Blurr fell and crawled the rest of the distance, equilibrium failing as his spark clenched. He wanted to turn back to the berth room. He wanted Shockwave to have followed him, perhaps even stop him again, but he didn’t and then Blurr was at the door. He crouched before it, feeling impossibly small, panting as he tried to think of what to say.

“Blurr?”

Cliffjumper sounded hoarse and desperate, very close to the door. Blurr jumped and hissed as the movement hurt him.

“Cliffjumper,” he breathed, pressing his wet hands to the wall and speaking into the crack below the lock, “I’m so sorry! I’m so so sorry Primus I don’t know what to say I’m sorry!”

Cliffjumper scratched at the metal.

“What has he done to you? Is he keeping you here too? Oh Spark- can you get me out?”

Blurr pressed his helm to the wall, dripping with lubricant and smears of silvery transfluid and realized he reeked of interface. Shame burned in his gut and he was angry that it wasn’t enough to make him sick. The post-overload haze still tingled in his fingers and he could almost laugh at it.

“I’m not trapped,” he said, almost weeping, “I’m not trapped at all. I did this to you. I helped him.”

“But you didn’t mean to!”

Cliffjumper spoke very quickly, shifting anxiously.

“I did. I did it on purpose. Because you knew. We had to stop you Cliffjumper I’m sorry!”

“I heard you screaming,” Cliffjumper said, “I know what he was doing. We have to stick together and maybe we can find a way out of this.”

His sorrow drying, Blurr beat at the door, “you don’t understand! I’m helping him, Cliffjumper! I knew he was going to capture you and I helped him! I’m a traitor!”

There was silence.

“There are traitors everywhere. I should have seen him coming. We have to find a way out of this, Blurr.”

He stared at the door in disbelief.

“Cliffjumper.”

“Blurr.”

Shockwave knelt beside him, not quite touching him. It was a good call; his plating was still ripe with sensitivity and he wanted to be numb.

“What’s wrong with him?”

Shaking his head, Shockwave tapped a claw against hi thigh.

“He does not like to believe that the truth lies beyond what he tells himself.”

“Is that- you monster!”

Cliffjumper began beating on the door and Blurr jumped back into Shockwave.

“Blurr? Keep away from him! You hear me Shockwave, you Decepticon scum! You keep away!”

Shockwave leaned in close, despite Blurr’s frantically shaking his head.

“Blurr is mine. He comes to me willingly.”

Cliffjumper yelled furiously.

“We are lovers.”

_“You monster!”_

The pounding continued.

“Come,” said Shockwave, turning away, “you’re filthy.”

* * *

 

“And it’s just like, okay, so if you have all these grand plans or whatever, just tell me what they are!”

Bumblebee slammed his fist into his open palm, as if making a profound statement.

“I mean I know the bossbot has other things to think about but you can’t just expect me to go along with everything he says all the time, right?”

Blurr hummed a passive agreement, stacking and then restacking a set of files.

“Why are there never any deliveries on the days when I want to get out of this place most?” he asked aloud, not caring that it interrupted Bumblebee’s story. Bumblebee didn’t care either, pacing as he had been for the past twenty kliks.

“And the worst thing is he’s right most of the time. I mean, it’ a good thing because that means all our afts get saved, but why the slag does it always have to be his idea and not someone else’s? There’s gotta be more than one way to solve a problem!”

Things had been dead around here for too long. It was stagnant and empty and Blurr felt, for the first time, the true reality of his demotion, the pain of sitting and doing absolutely nothing to further the cause. Even if it wasn’t his cause anymore. He leaned back in his chair, helm sagging as he crossed his arms, wondering if he could get away with a light recharge even though he wasn’t particularly tired.

“I like helping, you know, but I hate that it’s just, like, doing what I’m told, sometimes. Because sometimes it sucks to do what I’m told. There, I said it! I don’t care if it makes me sound like a hatchling!”

Blurr watched dust float lazily down and settle in the grooves of his tires.

“That’s what trust is about. You just have to make sacrifices that are entirely one sided sometimes. It isn’t fair but it’s for the better.”

Bumblebee kicked his feet up.

“That’s stupid. Life is stupid, Blurr!”

He cracked a smile.

“That it is.”


	12. Interlude 6: Slipping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shockwave is in too deep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes rape and gore. Enjoy!

“Blurr,” he moaned, stroking a long claw through the blue paint that was still drying, “oh my darling Blurr.”

The bot beneath him sobbed brokenly, vocalizer shorting out every few kliks with a shower of sparks and electric fizzle. Easing his spike in another notch, Shockwave’s entire body shuddered, glittering pops of discharge snapping across his antennae. The Autobot’s valve was so small, so unbelievably tight that it hurt, but still he could hardly contain his joy at the sensation.

Joy, real and true. It was so bizarrely alien a feeling.

“No…” the bot wheezed, “Oh Primus-s-s-s-s help me…”

Even as he dragged the stumps of his fingers across the pink floor, his vigor for life was leaving him. Shockwave had damaged him irreparably, and while he would live through the overload that would likely be his last sensation on this planet. It mattered very little; that was the exact amount of time Shockwave needed him for anyhow. He had been needy tonight, desperate, and the work on his victim was shoddy at best, but his fix would be had and the weakness of the facsimile forgotten by the next cycle’s light. Grinding his spike against the snapped calipers that pinched his most sensitive of wiring, Shockwave sighed, a deep, romantic sound.

“You are so precious to me. So precious.”

He thrust forward suddenly, sheathing himself completely inside the warmth of a broken body, and the mech cried weakly. Shockwave allowed himself a cursory glance downwards, only enough to see the blue, the gorgeous sheen of it in the low light, and then he breathed a loud gust of steam through every vent on his frame. The sight was too much. He was getting very pathetic in his desperation.

“To think I rejected you so long.”

He was panting now, helm bowed low to the floor as he began to work himself in earnest. The bots vocalizer chirped and fluttered in a way that was almost pretty. He had tweaked it as best he could in these conditions, but nothing could ever properly imitate the speed and clarity with which the real Blurr spoke. Still, the high, trembling death keens struck a chord in his spark and he shivered, a long and languid motion that started in his hindquarters and quaked upwards to the tips of his antennae. With a coo, almost a sigh, he came, silver streaks bursting out around the bubbling energon already dripping between them.

Pressing his face fully into the cracked flooring, Shockwave did his best to calm down. It was hard, because now that the high of his intimate panic was bleeding away he was acutely aware of how false the entire set up had been, of the dirty smell of the energon around him and the uncomfortably square frame of the bot he had chosen. He had thought himself bored of these pursuits, but the white walls of the med ward were fresh in his hard drives and he could still remember the cold glass that Longarm’s stocky fingers had rested on as he watched the shriveled pulse of a blue spark laid carefully into a gelatinous protoform base. The surgery had been long and clean and clinical and he was quite mad by the end of it, hot and itchy in that tiny compact frame.

How foolish love had made him.

It was then that he realized the Autobot was dead. Pulling out, he flipped the cooling frame over, an odd tickle of amusement orbiting his thoughts as the fresh coat of blue, smeared off in some places, grayed slower than the bot’s original colors. With an easy purpose, he stood, holding the limp shell at an arm’s length so as to keep himself at least a little clean, and turned to dump it into the waste drain. The tunnels beneath the city were full of easy disposal like this. Not even the Guard came down here without good reason.

Blurr’s protoform should be settling soon. In the morning he would likely visit before work, although he doubted he would get to inspect the agent up close. Not yet, anyhow. There would be problems, of course. This was not a good thing, or at least it shouldn’t have been. Still, the entire surface of Cybertron seemed alive beneath him in ways it hadn’t since he was young and it was still his home.

Scraping a claw through the thick cake of energon beginning to dry across his thighs, Shockwave purred quietly. He did enjoy a challenge.


	13. Act 7: Rend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blurr returns to investigation but gets no right answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really excited for you all to read this update! Enjoy~!

Blurr felt as though the office were filled with strangers. Bumblebee laughed and snacked and kicked up his feet onto the desk. He watched the halls with dull optics and little care for what went on, but still he watched. Blurr often thought back to Shockwave’s doubts about the cadet and found himself wondering about him himself. Secretary or not, Bumblebee was a bot wholly unfit to be anywhere near the Intelligence Bureau. Perhaps it was paranoia creeping in, but paranoia was a fear of the irrational and Blurr was coming to believe that nothing was impossible here, rational or not.

Rodimus did not get any more packages but Blurr found himself straying upstairs when he could simply to catch a glimpse of him. There was a pity inside his spark that he needed to appease, somehow, and by keeping a loose watch over the Prime he was somewhat satisfied. Plus there was still something bothering him about his late return, about what he had seen in the halls when he had left the gift on Rodimus’s desk those cycles ago. Green. He hardly knew any bots that were green at all, much less such a gaudy shade. Naturally inquisitive, he could not put the thoughts to rest, and Shockwave, tracing his claws over Blurr’s stomach as they lay side by side, noticed.

* * *

 

“What do you mean you don’t wanna sit with us?”

Bumblebee pulled a face, lips jutting. Blurr, still not used to being part of an ‘us’, kept his optics on his drink.

“Too good for our little lunches?”

He was joking, but Ironhide seemed a little off put anyhow.

“Well, y’know, my team’s back t’gether now that Prime’s back.”

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate the table where Brawn, Red Alert, and a somewhat overly accommodating Hot Shot were surrounding the newly returned Rodimus, smiling thinly.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, go abandon us then!”

Bumblebee seemed to drape across the chair like a delicate sheet of gauze, emotion loosening each limb. Ironhide chuckled at that, turning on heel with a nod to Blurr. Bumblebee and Ironhide had some history, apparently. Blurr had thought that would make them tense given how Bumblebee having history with _anyone_ seemed to be a bad thing, but they both seemed relaxed enough about it. It may have been the environment of work, or the lingering after effects of the Decepticon’s failure. Bumblebee himself had been instrumental in their capture. He never let anyone forget it.

“He looks so tired.”

“What?”

Bumblebee gave Ironhide’s retreating backside a scrutinizing glance.

“Nah, he’s just slow like that.”

“No, no,” Blurr shook his helm a bit, optics focusing tight on the far table, “Rodimus Prime. I’m really not sure he should be working again.”

He did look tired. His optics, while bravely raised as he spoke with his team, seemed dull and brittle, and the remains of his illness shook in his servos. Bumblebee did not seem to see it.

“S’what Primes are trained to do, I guess.”

Blurr hummed.

“In my experience Prime’s are trained to get back on their stabilizing servos after an attack yes but to have succeeded in returning to work so quickly on Rodimus’s part seems like a triumph of will more than anything and as brave and selfless as it seems I worry that he’s going to hurt himself I mean cosmic rust has a ninety nine point three kill rate it’s a miracle Rodimus is even here and it’s not like there are any more Cons to fight so I wonder what he thinks he’s doing.”

Bumblebee laughed.

“I’m not even going to ask you to repeat that.”

Ironhide patted Rodimus on the shoulder, smiling wide, his laugh carrying all the way across the lunch room.

“Don’t worry about it.”

Blurr returned to his drink.

* * *

 

When Shockwave next let him over he was almost afraid to breathe the air of his apartment, as if it were toxic. Longarm, or the red bot, or some other disguise had dropped by Blurr’s flat several times in the past two weeks to assure him and interface with him, but Blurr had begged to go back to Shockwave’s home, and raved, and ranted, until he was given the permission he so desired. It felt wrong to simply switch where they committed their acts of treason, like he was hiding from what he’d done, the real ramifications of his actions.

He was almost disappointed that there was no yelling of banging, Cliffjumper’s fists pointlessly beating themselves to dents against the door to his room, desperate for escape. It was too calm when all he wanted was to feel punished.

“Can I see him again?”

He had been thinking of all the ways he would pose the question on the way over, the lines and lines of speech about his rights and Cliffjumper’s rights and morality and reality but as he stared down the warmly lit hallway he realized there was nothing else to say.

“Yes,” said Shockwave, “but do not speak to him. I do not want you upsetting yourself like last time.”

“What about upsetting him?”

It was a stupid question that Shockwave did not deign answering, but Blurr needed to at least express the sentiment. He set his shoulders straight and walked towards the door with purpose. He knew Shockwave could tell how frightened he was, he knew there were no secrets he could keep at this point, but showing strength on the outside was the last defense he had here. That, and his anger.

He stared at the unyielding coldness of the doorway. Shockwave, from behind, said, “The spy hole is here,” and pointed to a small chink in the wall beside it. Blurr did as instructed, not wanting to think about it more than he had to, and discovered, as he lowered his optic to the hole, that it was in fact augmented with a curved magnification glass that made most of the room clear. In the corner, Cliffjumper sat, helm lying awkwardly against his chest. If it weren’t for the healthy sheen of his paint and the faint whir of ventilations emanating from beneath the door, Blurr could have mistaken him for dead.

“Is he alright?” Blurr whispered, afraid to wake him for whatever reason, “have you been feeding him?”

“Yes,” Shockwave did not bother lowering his voice, and Cliffjumper did not stir, “he is quite well, I promise you.”

His claws curved around Blurr’s belly, urging him away from the spy hole. He let himself be taken, feeling empty.

“How long does he have to stay here?”

He knew he’d asked the question before, but nothing about it seemed satisfying.

“As long as it takes, dear.”

He couldn’t watch the vid screen so Shockwave took him to the berth room, the farthest corner of the apartment from their captive, and they lay together in silence for a long cycle. Blurr pawed at Shockwave’s chest a bit but the action was not reciprocated and he was eventually annoyed enough to stop. Shockwave never rebuffed his advances, although sometimes he would play with Blurr, make him ask for specifically what he wanted in clear words, but he was too tired for that now. Let Shockwave expect him to beg. He would remain silent and stew in his own frustration until they were both sorry.

The ceiling stretched high and blank above them. Blurr found himself counting patterns in the sanded metal and was caught up in memories of the hospital, dark and slow and long. It felt like an eternity ago, and yet he remembered it more clearly than anything that came before it. Rolling onto his side, he crawled up to look Shockwave in the optic.

“Rodimus is back at work.”

“Yes, I heard”

“He was very sick.”

“I know.”

He watched his own reflection blink in the red filament. He didn’t look tired, scarred, like Rodimus had. He wondered if, when he’d first left the med ward, his face had been so gaunt with fear.  

“You’ve lived through war like three times now.”

“Twice.”

“How do you deal with it? I mean I know what happened to me, that wasn’t war, that was just you, crushing me, we’ve been over that I know, but I mean all the lies and lies and kidnapping and people getting hurt and coming back and not being the same. How do you deal with that?”

Shockwave pet him, and he squirmed closer, but the touch still remained infuriatingly platonic. He didn’t want to think, he didn’t want to feel, but interface did not seem forthcoming. Perhaps if he moved his hips down a bit, he could convince him.

 “You simply continue,” said Shockwave, watching him, “you do as you would have done. There is no point on dwelling. You know that my theory is the same regardless.”

“I know,” said Blurr, “but how? How do you move on from something so horrible? When it just keeps coming and coming, bad things keep happening to people all around you.”

“You seemed to move on pretty fast.”

That was a slap and he knew it. Blurr stammered, flabbergasted.

“I only mean,” he elaborated, clutching Blurr tighter to choke out whatever argument was brewing in his spark, “that your own trauma seems to be far behind you, given our current relationship.”

He was right but it still hurt. They had gone over this before but it still made him angry. He pressed his hips down, hard, and opened his interface panel. It was almost embarrassing how wet rage got him these days.

“it’s because _you_ make me this way,” he snapped, pushing down again, “you distract me with all this interface and all these new secrets and tricks and I’m so used to it because of being in the Elite Guard, of course, that I just slip right into it, like I’m on the job and never have any time to really think it over, and if I did it would probably be too much to process all at once now anyhow, and you interface me and promise, no, _threaten_ to interface me and it just consumes my thoughts and so _of course_ I got over it fast because you planned it that way!”

Shockwave was still not touching him, so he reached down between his own legs and stroked quick, insistent strokes across his valve lips, flicking past his engorged nub. His hips jumped into his hand, itching for something bigger.

“Incorrect.”

His claw slid up, pressing against Blurr’s hand but holding it trapped against his own valve. He growled in his high little voice, but Shockwave loomed closer, then, and silenced him with a look.

“I may be more than enthusiastic about our coupling, but you are the one who aims to distract yourself from reality. I merely allow it.”

Blurr thrust his hips back, pulling his hand away and managing to sink the very tip of his claw inside himself in one smooth motion. Shockwave jumped a bit and he smiled meanly.

“Liar.”

Shockwave’s pupil expanded and he felt the smile drop from his lips.

“Liar!”

The servo pressed up suddenly, sinking in deep, and Blurr gasped, chest falling forward until his hips were raised above his helm and he kissed the cold metal of Shockwave’s sigil. Each pump of his claw, first one then two, pushed Blurr forward and back, the rising tide inside himself mimicking each touch. He kicked and clawed, too worked up to go down without a fight despite the fact that he had wanted this all along. Shockwave’s other hand coming up to keep him pinned as he fragged him only made Blurr’s engine run hotter and he let the familiar rush of sensation blind him happily.

“If you wish to be distracted,” Shockwave’s spike rose up behind him, “here.”

Blurr wriggled out from his loosening hold, letting the claws slip from inside him, and pushed himself against the shaft. The ridges caught wonderfully against his outer node as he ground back, flexing his fingers against Shockwave’s chest in soft kneading patterns. He set a rough pace for himself immediately, panting halos of condensation onto the cool metal, but almost as soon as he’d gotten real contact it was broken, Shockwave pulling him back as easily as plucking fruit from a vine.

“Don’t-don’t-don’t take it away from me as soon as I’ve gotten it! That’s not fair you Decepticon menace, you monster criminal rust-ridden-!”

Shockwave turned him around and set him down between his legs, spike falling heavy against his cheek.

“Use your mouth. Now.”

Cutting his own complaints off, Blurr complied, latching his lips to the head and wrapping his thin fingers around the base faster than he’d been to get upset. Shockwave did not lubricate heavily but his prefluid was already collecting around the tip, and the added moisture of Blurr’s own lubricant eased his stroking along the lower petals of the unfolded scales. He lapped up the glistening beads of silver along the slit, enjoying the soft pulse of the wires beneath is touch, the flavor growing slowly more comfortable to him with each taste. The sheer acidity of Decepticon fluids was so different than the Autobot mildness he was used to, but it was just another thing to work on acclimating himself to, another step to focus on. It was better than the alternative, and he loved that more than anything.

“Good, good, Blurr.”

The claw nudged between his quivering thighs once again and Blurr redoubled his efforts, drooling openly as he was once again filled and overfilled. They had been practicing with the plugs, and he was getting better, closer to what Shockwave said would pass, and the feel of his girth between Blurr’s palms was less frightening now than it once had been. Exhilaration flooded his HUD and he humped backwards into the thrusting digits, digging his tongue into Shockwave’s slit just to feel him shudder.

Neither of them lasted long. Blurr was actually surprised Shockwave overloaded only shortly after he did, because usually he could work through four or five before Shockwave’s cooling fans even activated, but the foreplay had been emotionally draining and he didn’t care to question it. He ground his hips back so hard it hurt, the sharp tips scraping ungently into his nodes, banging against the anterior seal, but the pain intensified everything and he was distracted from it soon enough trying to swallow the fountain of transfluid as Shockwave hissed. He failed and a large dollop spilled down his chin and chest.

He spluttered, falling onto his heels as he was released. Shockwave’s optic was a red line of light as the filaments spasmed a bit in post overload pleasure, and Blurr himself slumped forward, pawing awkwardly at his chest as he spat through the spunk.

“Some warning might have been nice!”

Shockwave rumbled in something akin to a laugh, optic still offline.

“You knew full well what was coming. Do not pretend otherwise.”

Blurr looked up at him, still drooling transfluid, hands covered in silvery slickness as he gave up trying to clean himself and sat there panting and uncomfortably wet. Shockwave observed him quietly, cataloguing every shiver of his plating in the low light. Raising a single claw he turned Blurr’s helm back and forth, and was allowed to.

“Beautiful.”

He could not help but smile, though it was a weak one. He wanted to drink up the praise, but Shockwave’s words had cut too close, and Cliffjumper’s presence in the other room was all too pressing now. Instead of saying anything more, he succumbed to his exhaustion and laid forward on Shockwave’s sticky lap, letting the soft strokes down his spinal strut ground him in the moment.

* * *

 

It was nearing the latter end of the middle of his work cycle and Blurr was bored. Despite the note affirming his good work cycles ago, he had still not even been requested for another psychiatric evaluation and as the initial deluge of packages and sensitive materials slowed to a trickle he was finding it harder and harder to be thankful for having retained his position. What little of it was left.

To be fair, the other Intel agents didn’t seem to be better off. Not that he had that kind of in now, outside of whatever Shockwave mentioned in their private meetings, but he could see the signs of stagnation beginning to settle in. tapping fingers, long blinks, hunched necks. The joy of victory had worn away, and people were beginning to feel the lull of what came after. There had been no real peril on Cybertron; people weren’t distracted by picking up the pieces or cleaning the rubble. Once the executions had stopped, it seemed everything had.

Blurr knew there were more Decepticons captive. Shockwave had learned, as Longarm, that they were still needed for information, or to keep as potential bargaining chips when the few Cons left hiding out in the edges of the commonwealth showed themselves, as they inevitably would. Still, he worried they would grow desperate in the wake of their success and attempt another hasty bet for the public’s approval and cut down another prisoner or two. Though it felt like forever ago when he had seen his first extinguishing, it still made his throat contract to remember.

Now, though, there was nothing but the blank expanse of his desk before him. Bored, tired, and half in recharge, it was with great disaffection that he received a blip on his monitor requesting his presence in quarter eight five of the forty second floor. Small shipment, contained to the building. In fact, its final destination was back here, in Longarm’s hands. It wasn’t wholly unusual, given the nature of some of the things he transported, but the fact that it would take less than ten kliks made it more of a nuisance than a wanted distraction and he begrudged it for that. Signing out with Bumblebee, Blurr made his way to the stairwell and began the ascent.

As fast as he was going, he still saw, clear as day, the shimmer of a peel-lime colored spoiler disappearing through the exit three floors above him. it took him approximately point ten nano-kliks longer than it should have to register what he’d seen, and by then he was already six floors higher, so he had to backtrack three to be sure he’d seen it, but by then the mech was gone. Blurr never did anything without thinking it over four or five times, if he could help it at least, but this time even considering how much trouble he could potentially be in for harassing whoever the hell this was or being late on his delivery was not enough to stop him.

It was not Rodimus. It couldn’t be; he knew that much already. However, he also knew, as a (former?) Intelligence agent and as a generally spatially aware individual, that he had never seen anyone else with Rodimus’s formatting in the building before. That alone was cause for suspicion. His high level position meant that he was in the know with almost every branch of the Guard in the commonwealth. It was his job to keep stock of things, to notice small changes. Shockwave certainly hadn’t mentioned anything.

Not that he could have any way of knowing it was relevant. Rolling his optics at his own derailed train of thought, Blurr pushed at the manual hatch release and stepped out into the hall. He was surprised to find it empty and dark. At first he suspected he had stopped on the wrong stairwell, but a quick backtrack into the brightly lit doorway confirmed that he had picked correctly. He was not as familiar with the floors between thirty three and thirty eight, mostly because they had been under renovations and obsolete for a large portion of his career, but he hadn’t expected them to be so completely deserted. Everywhere in the Fortress, everywhere in _Iacon_ , was populated with at least some spare amount of mechs. Yet, floor thirty six was completely, utterly silent.

It was all too easy to slip into field form. Lowering the output of every non-essential internal mechanism, Blurr sucked his EM field tight to his frame and stood perfectly still. Immediately he was aware of the various devices in the floors above and below him, the hum that vibrated the metal beneath his boots ever so slightly. There were some things running on this floor too, and not just in the walls. His hearing wasn’t the best, but he could still make out the rhythmic pounding of a minor engine, and, almost soft enough to overlook, the patter of quiet feet.

His quarry was located.

He was sneaking after some mech in his own office building. Blurr knew all too well how strange this was, but at the same time it seemed more normal than anything else within the past stellar cycle. Stalking was something he knew and just as with running on the track it came so naturally that he was operating almost exclusively on protocol by the time he took his first real step after his target. With a cut left, then left again, he was close. Silence was not his greatest asset but his speed assisted in dimming the sound of his footfalls, and he turned the clip of his toe pieces up so he balanced on his wheels almost exclusively between pauses.

Now that he was closer, he could make out the tapping of fingers on keys and the muffled mumbles of bots at work. There was light coming from under a couple of doors, but only every few hundred feet or so. Some rooms didn’t even have doors, empty hinges gaping like snaggle teeth, or covered in sheets of plastic that whispered angrily in the breeze of his passing. Whoever it was was moving at a normal pace, brisk and businesslike but not worried. They didn’t know he was coming, or if they did it wasn’t a concern to them. He could detect a slightly harder step every other pace, indicating a limp. The engine was running cleanly, but not completely smooth. Possibly an older mech, not very old but definitely past his first five thousand stellar cycles. Emboldened, Blurr quickened his pace.

Then, the footsteps paused. It wasn’t a full stop, because they started up again a moment later, but the pause was there long enough for Blurr to consider a million possibilities for why, and quicken his pace because of it. The footsteps quickened shortly after his own. He’d been caught.

Biting the bullet, Blurr rushed it. It wasn’t as though he didn’t have security clearance to be here. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t make some excuse for it, if he even had to. Still, his spark was pounding so hard in his chest he nearly staggered, rounding the next corner in a burst of sound as his feet realigned to their normal setting, hand on his wrist as he already began to call up his badge and pass.

But there was nothing. Almost the moment he turned into the next hall all sound of whomever he was following ceased. Startled by the emptiness, Blurr skidded to a stop. Silence. The tapping and the mumbling behind doors continued, but everything else was just gone. Everything down this way was dark, the doors all shut or taped off. There was a window at the far end, but it had been completely sealed off, leaving nothing. A sign to his left read _36 Reading Quarter._

He’d been bested. Refusing to believe it at first, Blurr picked his way deeper, listening intently. There was the pulse of the electricity in the walls, the rumble of the world outside, but no sign of the bot he was chasing. He strained to hear and found himself growing dizzy from it. The doors were either locked or leading nowhere, rooms empty or some completely closed off by solid metal. Frustrated and confused, he braced himself against the wall and, finally, breathes a heaving sigh of hot air, loud and not caring.

He knew he had seen it. He knew he had heard something. _He knew it wasn’t Rodimus_ , and that was what made him realize, very suddenly, that something was very wrong.

* * *

 

“Is it you?”

Longarm looked up from his desk, smiling lightly.

“Ah, my Blurr.”

His hand reached below the desk and Blurr heard the click of the lock on the door behind him, but he didn’t care about that. Storming over to the desk, he put both palms flat against it, practically throwing the data pad he’d collected forward, and looked right into the hidden bulb of Shockwave’s optic.

_“Is it you?”_

The intensity of his upset wiped whatever positive emotion was brewing clean off Longarm’s face. He gave Blurr another once over, this time with scrutiny. Carefully, he parsed his lips.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t-don’t play dumb with me! I’m not stupid, you know I’m not, and you’ve shown me so much already, about how you shift and change colors and-and-and scheme!”

He jabbed a finger at his boss’s nasal ridge.

“I’m on to you!”

Longarm looked at him, and Shockwave looked too.

“Alright,” he said, slowly, “what is it you are on to?”

“Just, you,” Blurr had to take a nano-klik to collect himself, “shape shifting! You’re turning into Rodimus, or somebody like Rodimus, and roaming around doing Primus knows what and I keep seeing you and I know it can’t be Rodimus because I was seeing it before he was even back from the med ward and I didn’t even know he was there at first because nobody tells me anything anymore I mean not that they did much before but I know it’s you, it has to be, and I want to know why!”

Longarm put his hand over Blurr’s but Blurr pulled away, crossing his arms over his chest and stepping back a few paces. Diplomatic as ever, he chose to fold his hands together, steepling his fingers. His face remained calm but Blurr, rather smugly, detected a hint of consternation.

“Blurr,” he began, breathy with frustration, “I am not turning into Rodimus, or anybody like Rodimus, and toying with you.”

He hadn’t expected such a blunt response. It took Blurr a moment to re-strategize.

“How do I know that? How can I be sure you’re not lying to me!”

“I suppose you can’t,” said Longarm, “but, regardless, I am being genuine and that is my answer.”

Blurr began to tap his foot, looking around the room in aimless anger.

“Then who is it!”

“You know that if I had the answer I would have brought it up earlier.”

He did know that, but he pushed on.

“Surely you have some information, some access to the personnel database-!”

“Nothing you yourself wouldn’t be privy to.”

Blurr hissed between his teeth. Longarm softened.

“Why is this so important to you?”

“Because,” Blurr threw up his hands, “I don’t know what’s going on!”

With that he turned to the door, tapping on the manual release anxiously. The lock whined.

“Let me out!”

“Blurr…”

“Now!”

Longarm relented and the door slid open. Without another word Blurr strode down the hall, ignoring Bumblebee’s friendly questioning and disappearing back into the recesses of the lower level cubicles.

Sighing, Longarm relocked the door and shifted. As Shockwave he opened his private monitor and began dialing a call number.

* * *

 

At the end of his work shift he went home with little fanfare, ran a couple of laps around the apartment block before going in, and tried to watch the news. It wasn’t easy. In the post battle, post execution lull all they had to report was stocks and new construction and fluffy happy things that would have made him smile were he not so convinced of their emptiness. He wanted to enjoy it, but Shockwave had ruined the Autobot cause for him, just another pile of rubble in the wake of his treachery. Or perhaps Blurr had ruined it for himself. He could blame Shockwave for killing Ultra Magnus, but there was no denying the seed of evil had already been planted long before the Decepticon’s infiltration.

Rolling onto his side on the couch, he tried to find something else to watch. There was a race on, but it was low level and did nothing but make him itch. Regular TV shows had too slow of a pacing, and he was hard pressed to find music that translated well through his processor. He kicked his legs up, settling on a nature program, and tried his best to zone out.

Not for the first time, he considered that the Elite Guard was trying to kill him via boredom.

He wanted to just let it be. He wanted to be able to ignore whatever he’d been seeing and get on with trying to pretend things were normal, and he wanted to trust Shockwave. That was the worst part of all. He knew he shouldn’t but there it was, real as his spark swirling in his breast. There was nothing he could do, though, no way he could prove Shockwave right or wrong until he was presented with the green Rodimus again. Clearly trying to hunt him down on his own was a pointless endeavor. Restlessly he turned and twisted, nearly falling off the couch.

This wasn’t working. Abruptly, Blurr sat up, bracing his arms hard against the cushions. He was an agent of the Elite Guard, no matter how far they demoted him in the name of ‘healthcare’. Instead of waiting for his answers to come to him, he would go out and get them.

* * *

 

He burst into the study and Shockwave greeted him with a quiet cock of the head.

“You’re getting far too used to entering without permission.”

“Shut up.”

Blurr scrambled onto the oversized desk and kicked away the data pad Shockwave was holding, demanding his attention with body language alone.

“I want proof. I want proof and I want reassurance and you told me that you were the only one I could trust so I need you to prove it.”

Shockwave stroked a claw along his cheek and he batted at it angrily.

“How can I prove it, my dear?”

Swatting as he was again stroked at, Blurr vibrated.

“That’s your job to figure out, not mine!”

Despite his fighting, Shockwave scooped Blurr up with ease, pulling him close in one giant hand. Wanting to be petty and annoying, Blurr kicked uselessly at his chest plate.

“Stop it!”

“I will not.”

Shockwave nuzzled against him helm and Blurr tried to head-butt him.

“Do not be difficult, Blurr.”

Shockwave’s tone was kind, but warning.

“I do what I can to teach you, but my words can only go so far.”

“Then why should I ever have reason to believe you?” Blurr snarled, “what am I supposed to do to keep myself _sane_ like this? What do you _want_ from me?”

“I do not expect you to trust me implicitly,” he said, “but I wish you would try.”

“Why,” Blurr had to laugh, “Why do you?”

“Because I love you.”

As if it was so simple.

“You don’t love me,” Blurr spat, “you don’t love anything. You don’t have feelings, and you’re not answering my question, so I’ll restate it again just on the off chance your supposed _love_ blinded you to my sincerity: what is your ultimatum? What do you want from me, and I mean really.”

Shockwave, perhaps sensing his trembling, stayed perfectly still.

“That is a myth perpetuated by the Autobot propaganda. A good spy and indeed scientist or intellectual of any sort must have emotion to be truly immersed in their profession. Emotion, though bothersome, I admit, is essential to understanding the true nature of the mind’s workings. It is why I will never be an expert in the behavioral, as I do admit that my own capacity to feel as you do is somewhat stunted, but it is there all the same. One cannot emulate an emotion properly without tricking the spark into feeling it, and I would never be so foolish as to take on a persona so closely tied to a ring of spies should I not have the ability to do so.”

Bristling still, Blurr shook his head as though denying the facts, still angry and feeling weak for it.

“You speak to me as if I were a hatchling and I resent that. I know full well the theory you’re feeding me here and I can’t accept anything you say as truth. You can spew logic at me all night and add up as it may that doesn’t meant I’ll be able to trust it. I don’t take any grace in saying you’re smarter than me but it’s true and if you were to be cooking up some dastardly plan as you are wont to do I would hardly be the wiser for it no would I? I can’t accept that, Shockwave.”

“My ultimatum, as you call it,” Shockwave drawled on, as if Blurr’s rising emotive state did not bother him at all, “is to woo you. I know you are smart enough to recognize my treachery for what it is and has been in the past but I openly admit now my desire is to seduce you, mind and spark, as I would say our prior interaction has proven your body is willing.”

Crossing and uncrossing his arms, Blurr began to kick again, furious that he was right and that there was no better way to cover himself from the eye that had already seen all.

“Before you cut me off I will elaborate. If you still do not believe me then consider it hypothetical that I had grown fond of you in our time together. I have explained my reasons for killing you before,” and here his pupil shrank to a pale line like a slash across his face, “and I know that whether or not you accept them they are true. I was fond of you, Blurr, and I wanted you as I want you still.”

“If you love me so much then explain why!”

Blurr crossed then uncrossed his arms again, cold.

“tell me in truth why you love me, and don’t just make it that whole pile of scrap everyone romantic always says because I’m wise to that and you- you- you should know it.”

His glitch snapped along his throat and he closed his mouth abruptly, rubbing at his jawline.

“Nothing I say will convince you.”

Shockwave’s tone was dull and painfully knowing.

“As you have just noted, anything I say to you could be a lie and you could not know. I could have some sinister plot at hand that requires your total submission to me, though for the sake of honesty I must tell you I do not, but if I did you would not know. Of course, there is only one way you could ever be sure, and I do not think that at this strange in our relationship you would be quite open to it.”

Blurr immediately recoiled, face torn by upset.

“How _dare_ you!”

Shockwave’s helm tilted slightly, always blank.

“Does the very idea of that level of intimacy with myself disgust you so?”

His fingers grasped at air.

“You speak to me as though it were imminent, that I have no choice in the matter.”

It was always hard for Blurr to speak so clearly when upset. The high and reedy little to every word made him sound like air peeling from inside a punctured bladder, but he had no other way of communicating his sincerity.

“Blurr, your actions are your own. I will not deny that I intend to do everything in my power to sway your opinion to favor me and my intentions, but I do not have the means nor the will to control you as a puppet. I do want you, and I do intend to have you, if I can.”

The tension drained from Blurr’s legs as though the fuel lines had been slashed. He slumped back down and stayed there.

“Even if I were to give myself over, how would I ever know you truly? I loved Longarm Prime, but you are not him, even if he was you, and I don’t know you, and you are a liar.”

“I do not lie to you now,” Shockwave ducked his helm to be closer to Blurr’s level, “and if I were to truly have you in the way I desire, no word I say could ever speak louder than the echo of my feelings in your spark.”

Cards on the table. Blurr could not answer him, exhausted. However, his eyes were distorted with horror, not the horror of sudden realization but that of a beast shown its own face. Shockwave’s spark twisted with agony.

“Do you think,” he said, the lowness of his tone as wracked with pain as Blurr had ever heard someone speak, “that I chose to be your slave willingly?”

Blurr barked out a laugh, grasping at his own face.

“You-you-you think I wanted any of this?”

“I am compelled to be by your side every moment I can spare,” said Shockwave, more forcefully now, “it is only fair that you give me your time, when you have so cruelly taken me within your hold.”

“I never asked for this! I never asked for you to become so drawn to me that-that-that you can’t control yourself and you just keep making everything worse and worse! I never asked for that!”

“You _begged_ for Longarm’s love.”

 Shockwave loomed closer, curling in unnatural ways as his neck dropped to bring his optic to Blurr’s face.

“What could he have possibly given you I cannot take?”

Blurr did not look away.

“The truth.”

It stung as intended.

“Is that what you want?”

His voice was quiet, but Blurr heard it clearly as ever.

“Is that what you really want?”

Emotionally exhausted, Blurr nodded firmly.

“Yes.”

“Then take it,” and Shockwave’s chest plates growled and separated, and Blurr faced him as he truly was.


	14. Interlude 7: Knot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shockwave moves fast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays!

Blurr looked so beautiful when he recharged. His frame was still so weak, so full of wires and plugs, but he was alive and here, soft and glistening as his protoform solidified on the hospital berth. Despite knowing better, Shockwave almost wanted to sink his hands into the material, try to shape it as his own. At the same time he wanted Blurr to be as he always was, as he was intended to be. That was his truest perfection, after all.

He did not take the call in his office. This was something too important to trust in the hands of his myriad failsafes and firewalls, as good as they were. In the dark tunnels beneath the city, Shockwave stretched his limbs wide and clicked on the monitor.

“Things are going well, Lord Shockwave.”

Strika saluted, the image of a low lit warship bridge in the background. It was no Nemesis, but it pleased Shockwave to observe.

“So I see.”

“Ah, so you’ve noticed, then?”

She puffed out her chest with pride.

“The stockpile was right where my fallen comrade had labeled it to be. We were almost as undermanned during the war as we are now, but there are enough servos yet to use it.”

“Your confidence is inspiring.”

Chuckling at that, Strika leaned across the console.

“We do what we can to keep up spirits, sir.”

“I am glad to hear it,” Shockwave said, optic slanting, “it is important to have everyone ready when the time comes.”

“And it will come, my Lord!”

She saluted, bowing slightly. Not quite the zealot that Lugnut was, but she did have her eccentricities. He liked that.

“And when will you be in position?”

She looked at him, the lack of mouth doing nothing to hide her professionally cold pleasure from someone with even less of a face. Strika was at her most handsome when she was winning, and Shockwave recognized the look.

“We are but twenty eight breems from Luna Two, Lord Shockwave.”


	15. Act 8: Break From Form :Everything Changes

Shockwave’s spark was everything he was. Brilliant, cold, enormous. Blurr could only stare, and as he stared he felt as though it were pulling him inside, devouring him every nano-klik he remained still.

“I,” he tried to think, finding it impossibly difficult, “no!”

He pushed out, grabbing the sides of Shockwave’s chest and pushing, unable to tear his gaze away, “no, no! No! No!”

Shockwave held him fast, watching. His spark pulsed, a long, slow turn that burned a note deep into Blurr’s mind. His own was leaping behind his chest plates as if possessed.  Scrabbling at Shockwave’s chest, he gasped for air, fear set deep in his core.

“Not now, not yet, I can’t do this now I can’t do this I can’t-!”

He kicked out, knocking things right and left, but Shockwave had him too tight, pulling him closer until the cold heat of his spark seemed to burn Blurr’s faceplates.

“Someday,” he purred, “someday you will. You long to join me, to find solace in my ever stronger presence. You need me. Even now I hear your spark call my name.”

Blurr braced himself and kicked, hard. Shockwave actually grunted as the blow landed squarely against his face plate, and the loosening of his claws mixed with the force of the kick propelled Blurr back out of his hands and off the desk. He hit the ground, struggling, and rolled to his side before kicking off. It was a poorly planned move though and he shot out into the hall too fast, crashing into the wall hard enough to wind him. He kept moving, and as he did he glanced into the office and saw not a still form but a moving mass, black and red, Shockwave stretching and squeezing all at once as he seemed to simply flow over his own desk, reaching.

He shot to the side, moving away just as Shockwave hit the wall where he had, not as a collision of mech to metal but as a wave. He turned and flew at Blurr like a force of nature. Too shocked to think clearly, Blurr ran to the door but couldn’t get it open fast enough. He doubled back, unable to retrace his steps and so moving on. Panic rocked him inside, dampening his senses to anything but self-preservation protocol. He flew into the berth room, fingers scrabbling at the door frame to get the automatic to slide out and lock, but it didn’t, couldn’t, somehow, and then Shockwave was there.

He screamed, not really meaning to, and threw himself backwards so hard he hit the opposite wall. Shockwave continued his advance, sliding through the doorway like water through a grate, and Blurr did the most foolish thing he had ever done in his career.

He backed himself into a corner.

“I don’t want to spark bond with you Shockwave I’m not going to do it _I’m not going to!”_

“Shh.”

Shockwave swept down over him, arms outstretched, and encircled Blurr within himself.

“I would never demand such a thing. I could not live with that hate inside myself.”

He pulled Blurr to his chest, his solid, closed chest, and nuzzled along his helm.

“Your emotions would tear me apart.”

Blurr head-butted him in the optic, hard enough that his own antenna dented painfully on the front angle. Shockwave reared his helm back, grunting, but only held tighter. Blurr’s arms were pinned and without leg room to build momentum. Unable to do more than scuff the thick tank tread on Shockwave’s thighs he instead placed the soles of his feet on the Decepticon’s legs, pushing with all his might in quick, desperate bursts. Shockwave looked down at him, optic flickering as a small crack along its center disrupted the proper flow of light.

“Must we always have these tantrums when I express my feelings?”

Yelling in mindless anger, Blurr stopped, shaking, and leaned his head into Shockwave’s chest.

“Why do you always do this to me? Why can’t you just be happy with tormenting me as it is and not make everything worse and worse and worse?”

“I could ask the same of you, love.”

He dug his fingers into the vents by Shockwave’s sigil and said nothing, feeling bitterly wronged. Shockwave held him still a moment, rocking, as he did in their embrace. Then, with just as much care and passion, he turned and violently threw Blurr onto the berth.

“Ah-Sir!”

“Do not fight me.”

The growl was so quiet and yet rang with so much hidden malice that Blurr was stunned. Taking heed of his words, though not in the way Shockwave had intended, he turned, terror and something even worse coiling like hot coals in his stomach. Turning, he scrambled to the headboard, only to be grabbed by the wheels in his pedes and dragged back. Shockwave spread his thighs with that same grip and when they eventually collided it was crotch to aft. Blurr tore at the berth pad as he struggled, kicking back uselessly. Shockwave pushed his hips into Blurr, once, twice, and unsheathed his spike along Blurr’s aft.

_“Do not fight me.”_

Without reason, without need, Blurr complied. He was still a mess of emotions but this, this was his sanctuary. This was what he needed to avoid thought. This was safety.

He opened his panel. It came to be that after all this time interfacing with a monster he was already wet when it happened, even more than he would have normally been. Aroused, plump, hot, he tilted his hips back and pushed against the base of Shockwave’s spike, whatever he could reach, mouth falling open in a sigh. Shockwave rocked gently into his movements, rutting against the outside of his valve.

“Have you forgotten everything we have spoken of? I will not allow you to use me as a shield for your own mistakes anymore, my darling.”

He pulled his hips back and Blurr felt the head of his plug trace his valve lips deliciously.

“You do not just feel pleasure because of me, you feel it with me. You do not just commit crime because of me, but with me.”

Shockwave pushed harder against him and Blurr gasped, the realization of what was happening hitting him. He pulled at the berth pad so hard it ripped into a useless curl in his palms.

“You are not just a traitor because of me, Blurr.”

“Wait- wait! Stop stop stop!”

The pressure was becoming too great. He could feel his calipers cycle open, aroused, but panic gripped him at the memory of the size.

“You’ll break me open – _you’re going to break me!”_

Shockwave growled. The head sunk inside, not fast and sharp as he had expected but slow, like the push of a blade into his cut. The writhing stopped, the struggling along with it, and Blurr, now held up by Shockwave’s hands alone, gaped at the wall in front of him blankly, optics blisteringly bright.

“A-AH-!”

Sighing contentedly, Shockwave held still a moment and savored him. Blurr was so, so tight, so small and thin, his hips barely managing to spread enough to take him. Blurr hadn’t noticed the subtle change in his physique but Shockwave had, the way that, as his calipers widened with their training, his hips had too, and it showed clearly now. The moment passed and he pushed a few inches more, the cling of Blurr’s inlet lining caressing every groove in his plug.

Blurr cried, a ragged, animal wail, renewing his attempts to pull himself away, sparks popping from his optics as luminous tears.

“ShockwaveLongarmSirSir stop _stop st-aaah_ it hurts it hurts it hurts a lot!”

Shockwave pushed harder and he screeched, throwing his helm back enough that Shockwave could see the small trail of drool forming at the corner of his mouth, the lenses of his optics singing at the edges.

“You wanted this. You wanted to be with me,” he stretched his neck down until they were cheek to cheek, “and now you have me.”

He was big, enormous compared to anything Blurr had taken before, even the plugs. Somehow, though, he wasn’t tearing, his calipers screeched but did not snap. Worse was that Blurr felt pleasure, deep, excruciating pleasure that burned directly up into his swollen spark like shots of venom. Every tiny flinch between them was magnified tenfold by their connection, the ridges and seams of Shockwave’s spike catching every single node cluster and then rubbing it almost raw, too close to a blade’s thinness to be anything but dangerous and he was taken by it. The pain spread through every circuit but the pleasure consumed him alive.

A hand was circled around his waist like he was merely a doll and Shockwave held him there, squeezing in ever further. Blurr could not imagine he was so deep inside, could not believe Shockwave wasn’t in his throat already, but still he progressed until finally the prod against his gestation tank became a painful pinch and he had scrambled at Shockwave’s claws, lifting his arms and legs from the berth because he could and begging him to stop.

“To-too full-a-a-a-I-!”

Shockwave paused, finally, sheathed about two thirds of the way inside him. It was farther than he would have thought, honestly, and he was pleased to see Blurr’s valve stretched wide around him, feel the bulge like never before in his hand. Blurr ceased his struggled when the pushing stopped, going limp and trying to catch his breath. His ventilations were coming out in thin whines, mouth gaping. Shockwave smoothed a thumb along his backside and pushed one knee up onto the berth, really holding Blurr as if he were a toy now, one hand bracing his own body against the wall while the other held Blurr aloft and on his spike, helpless to move or escape or do anything but cling to his claws and squeal pitifully.

“There,” Shockwave mumbled, and then he pulled back. Blurr felt as though every nerve cluster inside him were being scraped simultaneously, the sharp curves of Shockwave’s spike twice as deadly on the way out as they were going in. Shockwave was slow and careful, dragging himself back until just the tip of his cord remained inside, feeling Blurr’s valve pulse and shudder in weak attempts to force him the rest of the way out. Blurr moaned in soft sorrow.

“Please, Sh-it’s too much, I can’t, please…”

“Hush,” Shockwave crooned, stroking Blurr’s back with a single claw, “you’re doing so well.”

Blurr dragged his fingers up Shockwave’s hand in some pathetic parody of a clawed beast, unable to do more than gasp as his attempted grip did nothing but slip along the dark paint. Horribly endeared, Shockwave began to push back inside. His plating was thick, even on his spike, and he knew Blurr’s valve lining was thin and fragile and softer than anything a Decepticon could naturally grow but the real pleasure was in the flavors of the air, Blurr’s fear and arousal wafting through his EM field, the scent of his lubricants as they bubbled out on each back thrust, the small scent of burning as a few sparks crackled and popped off Blurr’s spine. Shockwave was no sensual beast, but for Blurr he would become one if only it meant he could immerse himself fully over and over again, plugged into Blurr’s socket and drinking in his every twitch.

Blurr sucked in a shuddering gasp.

“Sh-Shockwave-!”

The hairpin trigger flicked and Shockwave slammed the rest of the way in, still unable to fully sheath himself but somehow finding that even more arousing, seeing Blurr stuffed so full he could literally take no more, hanging in his hands, limp and twisted. Blurr screamed and Shockwave took him again, and again, optic shining bright as he brought his visual feed up to full input status.

“I can’t I can’t I can’t I don’t understand how I- oh Primus Shockwaveahveahve I I I can’t oh oh please-!”

Bouncing as if he were made of springs and wire, Blurr screamed himself hoarse, the only sound louder than his scratchy wails being the slick squelch of their connection, his small frame somehow producing enough lubricant to continually drip between them until Shockwave himself was shining and slick from the spike down.

And Shockwave’s spark throbbed in longing.

He pounded into Blurr with no thought for logical process, with no care for his mission. The pleasure surrounding him, the vision he had captured, consumed everything. He slumped forward halfway, having to support himself with one hand if he were to keep Blurr aloft as he did, pulling him up and down like nothing more than a hole to plug in to, grunting softly as Blurr’s kicking legs clipped him in the hip a few times. He could barely feel it.

Blurr shrieked, heavy static clouding his voice, and tightened considerably around Shockwave’s spike, a feat at this point, and Shockwave realized he was overloading. He slowed his pace, grinding into Blurr with soft motions as he let the Autobot ride it out.

“That’s good,” he said, quietly, “that’s very good, Blurr.”

As he built back to his harder pace, Blurr keened.

“You see,” Shockwave bent low over him, claws straining at the berth pad, “we are meant for this.”

With his own overload building, Shockwave hunched forward until he brought his other knee up onto the berth, half kneeling now as he fucked Blurr. His fans roared, the ancient engines inside himself grinding harder than they had in centuries as his spark, unable to remain still, spun itself into a frenzy. Blurr could feel it beneath him, through all their plating, through the hand that held him, as if it were still bared and menacing him in the office. As energy shorted across his plating his own spark reached back within himself, desperate to answer the call.

He came again, the beat of Shockwave’s body against his own turning over in his engine like the force of Primus beneath them. His thighs were spread so wide, the new angle lending itself to this only in that he was able to rest his toe grips on the cartridges at Shockwave’s hips instead of swinging them wildly. Drool, condensation, and sparks streaked down his face, a mess, popping dark smears onto the pad below. He felt his calipers scream against the pressure at a particularly hard thrust and sobbed, vision going technicolor as the visual feed cut and tried to reorganize under the influx of physical data.

Shockwave watched him, optic burning a bright hole in his back even as he himself overloaded. It was so much more intense from inside, the slick clench of Blurr’s valve turning near molten as his transfluid pulsed out. It was too much for him to take, literally, and Shockwave pulled out quickly, letting Blurr’s bottom half drop without support. His transfluid was hot on Blurr’s back, Shockwave holding him steady as he finished so that Blurr took it all one way or another, frame stiff. In his hand, Blurr hiccupped softly, thighs trembling as he hung. What little had managed to squeeze in alongside Shockwave’s massive girth dribbled out between his thighs with the excess lubricant, the hot slide of it lighting up his sore sensors in one final twitch of ecstasy.

“You are mine,” said Shockwave, laying him on his stomach on the moist berth, “I am already inside your head.”

Blurr, flat and limp, could only gasp as pressure returned to his spine, Shockwave pressing against him as he tucked his spike away, the kiss of his antenna recognizable even while Blurr’s systems threw him reboot notifications, red and hard in his optical feed.

* * *

 

He hadn’t dreamed like this in so long. Shockwave stood on top of the Magnus’s split body, washed pink, and Blurr stood beside him. By Primus, thought Blurr as he surveyed the sea of red eyes watching him, what have I done.

* * *

 

He awoke in the same position he had been laid, though he knew he much have been moved because he and the berth were clean. He ached inside, valve still embarrassingly loose behind his panels. Without turning on his optics Blurr stretched out his EM field, searching for the presence he could not hear, and came back empty. If Shockwave was around, he was not in the same room or any of the adjacent.

Blurr pushed himself up onto his elbows carefully, grimacing both at the creak in his back and the slight twinge inside himself that indicated not all of Shockwave’s fluids had been evacuated when he was cleaned. It wasn’t overly uncomfortable but he could feel the slight pooling of it behind his interface cover as he shifted upright, warm. He would have to deal with that. Sitting up, he gasped in pain and then covered his mouth, embarrassed. He had been trained to deal with injury, even if it had never covered anything this intimate. Besides, all his internal diagnostics seemed to indicate that he was undamaged, for the most part; spread wide but without any breaking or tears. Still, it was a big push, and his calipers flexed of their own accord as his equipment slowly tried to rearrange itself to a resting state, pushing a disconcerting hint of painful arousal through him. He stood, slightly bowlegged, and performed a few twists to realign his back strut, surveying the room.

Shockwave was indeed gone. Now that he was fully alert it seemed he may not even be in the apartment anymore, no sound or crackle in the air indicating his presence. A data pad was on the small table by the berth, indicating that he had been reading at some point during Blurr’s blackout, but nothing else seemed changed. Shifting as more fluid pushed against his inside, Blurr decided that, regardless of the whereabouts of the homeowner, he had business to attend to.

The shower was still slightly damp from its last use, though Shockwave’s fastidious nature meant it wasn’t overly so. Blurr couldn’t reach the shower nozzle on his own and was not willing to run into the kitchen to get a footstool at the moment so he tugged it down by the attached tubing, flinching out of the way just in time to avoid it crashing down on his already spinning head. Crouching on the tiled floor, he switched the faucet to a low setting and, sighing gratefully, opened himself up.

It was always unpleasant cleaning his equipment out, but this time he was sore and actually a little swollen and he jumped every time the solvent got too close to his exterior node, uncomfortably sensitive. There was less transfluid than it had felt like and he was almost embarrassed all over again by the small trickle of silver he ended up washing out. Looking around, half expecting Shockwave to have materialized within the room just to surprise him, Blurr used two fingers to spread himself and directed the spray upwards inside himself, just a little, trying to get out any excess. The solvent was only lukewarm and his valve clenched twice on it, making him moan, startled.

He turned off the shower and stepped away, not bothering to try hanging up the nozzle. That was too much to deal with right now.

“Shockwave?”

The apartment had no acoustic resonance at all, and his voice sank unheard into nothing. He finished drying himself and stepped into the hall, looking around. The lights in the main room were still on and low as he had left them, the door to the office half open and the bedroom wide and dark across the way.

“Shockwave, if you’re still here and just ignoring me or being quiet for some other reason I would appreciate it if you at least made yourself known because I am in no mood for this.”

He paused, remembering the cold turn of Shockwave’s spark above him. Without thinking he crossed his arms over his chest, rubbing his hands against his shoulders as he moved back to the main entryway. He was, as he had thought, alone.

Well, almost. Cliffjumper’s room yawned silent on his right, locked and sealed.

Temptation flared in his gut. he had been ashamed and frightened after their first talk, ashamed because of his place in doing this to Cliffjumper, frightened at what he had become, but also afraid of Cliffjumper and his seeming decent into mania. Guilt came with the decision to stay away though, knowing full well that Shockwave could have disposed of Cliffjumper weeks ago and Blurr would not have been any wiser. There was no audible movement behind the door now, even after his hollering a moment before, and he found himself edging closer in the silence. Shockwave wasn’t here to whisk him away this time if things got too heated, but at the same time that left certain other opportunities open.

Unsure of how to approach the issue, Blurr rapped his knuckles against the metal nervously.

“Cliffjumper? Are you there?”

No response. Blurr shuffled closer, not wanting to press against the door.

“I-it’s me, Blurr, I’m here, alone. Shockwave isn’t here. Are you alright?”

Then, noise. It was a surprisingly normal shift, not the creak of weak plating or groan of an unfed mouth as he had come to expect, in his fear. Someone walked to the door, pedes clicking along the flooring as they would anywhere else, the same heavy clap of his gait as the halls of Fortress Maximus had often heard.

“Blurr?”

His spark leapt sickly, both pleased at having received an answer and horribly burdened by the continuing weight of his responsibility.

“Yes, it’s me,” he said, pressing his palms flat against the door and speaking to it like a portal.

“Has he hurt you? Are you okay?”

Cliffjumper shifted again, moving closer himself.

“m’fine. I mean, alive.”

He sounded almost normal, aside from the clear trepidation in his voice. Blurr felt weak.

“I,” he swallowed, “I know nothing I say now will be different from anything I said before, but I’m sorry. I didn’t want this.”

Cliffjumper said nothing and Blurr’s fuel tanks curled.

“I know it means nothing and nothing isn’t good and I know that me saying this doesn’t lighten what’s happened and I know it’s just words but I won’t let him hurt you, I promise, we’re going to find a way out of this where you’re alright, where he doesn’t-“ he couldn’t finish the sentence, choking on the word _kill._

“The first time you came back here, I wasn’t thinking right.”

Cliffjumper’s voice, somehow, was stronger than Blurr had ever heard it. It penetrated the metal easily, though quiet, and snapped all the attention he had straight.

“I’m not trained like you. I don’t react well under pressure.”

He seemed to snort gruffly at that, almost a laugh.

“Cliffjumper, I-”

“Blurr,” he said, “what is an apology from you right now? Are you going to let me out? Are you going to call the Guard here?”

Blurr said nothing, stammering.

“No,” Cliffjumper spat, “you aren’t, because you’re part of this. I thought you weren’t, I really, really hoped you weren’t, but you are.”

Blurr pulled away from the door, something like anger sprouting from his fear.

“You don’t understand any of what’s been happening to me!”

“So what?” Cliffjumper much of hit the door, slammed against it somehow, because it shook and Blurr flew back against the opposite wall in an involuntary reaction.

“You’ve joined him! After all that’s slagging happened, you’ve gone and turned!”

Blurr braced himself against the wall like a cornered turbo rat.

“After all that’s happened? What do you know about what’s happened? What does any of the Elite Guard know? All that I’ve seen since I woke up in that medical ward was you people murdering bots for sport and calling it patriotism!”

He stopped himself as soon as he’d started, terrified of how strong his own passion was. Behind the door he could hear Cliffjumper growling, that low animal sound he made when he was having a hard time containing himself. In the office it had always been a warning of imminent tantrums, and most people avoided it while thinking of it as more of an annoyance than anything else. Blurr focused on the noise, pinpointing Cliffjumper’s exact location with the sound, as if he had the means to actually stop him from speaking the next words.

“’You people’.” Cliffjumper snorted again.

“It really is you against us now, isn’t it? You’ve been with him all along, with all of them, planning.”

“All of whom?” snapped Blurr bitterly, “there is no one else. Shockwave is more alone than you are.”

Cliffjumper hit the door again, though with considerably less force this time.

“Don’t lie to me, traitor, there are plenty others. I’ve heard them.”

“You’re paranoid,” Blurr bared his dental grill, “and stupid if you think you can trick me now, after everything you’ve said.”

“You think it’s that hard?”

Cliffjumper moved back from the door. Blurr could hear his feet scrape against the ground as if he were pacing, setting his thick weight into a wider stance.

“You’ve been under surveillance since you woke up and you didn’t even notice.”

Blurr pushed forward again, pointing at the door accusatorially, as if Cliffjumper could tell.

“Oh, like its some big secret they don’t trust me, that they want to keep my vocalizer offline about having been attacked just so they could enjoy their day in the suns. You think I don’t know about that, when Sentinel Magnus himself came down to my berth side just to tell me I had to keep my mouth shut on penalty of incarceration, or are you really more stupid than I had already begun to surmise?”

He was shaking, he realized, fists clenched by his sides as he stared at the while nothingness of the door, infuriated, ashamed, irrational. Cliffjumper spat at him, or at least it sounded like it.

“You idiot,” he said, “That’s not the only reason you’re on watch. I mean, not anymore.”

“You’re trying to intimidate me but it’s not working. Why would you know about any of this if Longarm didn’t? You’re a secretary, not even a real agent.”

“I would know,” he said, “if I was in on it.”

There was no way of knowing if Cliffjumper was lying or not, not in this situation at least. Blurr didn’t want to listen to any more of this, didn’t have to by any means, but he remained still, waiting for a reply. He had to ascertain as much data as he could. Calm head, steady voice.

“What do you mean?”

More shifting. Blurr opened the vents along his helm and breathed steam, calming himself. This was work, not personal, he told himself.

“You really didn’t notice.”

“That depends on what it is.” Blurr licked his lips, audio and electromagnetic sensors booting up to high. He could feel the way Cliffjumper turned his fists together, fidgeting as he spoke.

“Why should I give you anything else? If you can’t even tell when your own government is looking at you, maybe it’s better if I just let things play out.”

“What,” said Blurr, tone carefully snappy, “you don’t have any more time to gloat?”

It seemed to illicit the intended response.

“Shut up! You’re the one running out of time, between you little plans and ours. You think anyone is getting away from here without consequences?”

The words turned over in Blurr’s mind several times in the breath of a nano-klik.

“How much exactly do you know about ‘our plans’?”

“More than you think.”

Cliffjumper had always been difficult to wrestle words from, but it was even harder with his temper so harsh, as it currently was. Blurr was a good spy but he wasn’t an actor. He could only pull this so far.

“What does it matter if you know ‘more than I think’ if you’re still trapped inside there? It’s not like Shockwave is letting you go any time soon.”

“Is that some kinda euphemism?”

This was going nowhere. Blurr began to wonder if Cliffjumper was actually still without a shred of lucidity and was just stringing him on because he could. Turning away, Blurr snuffed hotly, dissatisfied and exhausted with it. Standing so long had slowly become painful as well, his legs aching, and he wanted to lie down. It felt strange to consider napping in Shockwave’s apartment along, though, especially now with Cliffjumper like this so close by. Biting his lip he looked into the living room once more, almost hoping now that Shockwave was watching from some distant shadowed corner.

“Admit it,” said Cliffjumper, drawing his attention back to the door, “you have no idea what’s coming to you.”

“Well I suppose I wouldn’t be able to admit that in good faith since I would have no way of being sincere, would I?” Blurr sneered, finally detaching himself from the conversation to head into the berth room. Cliffjumper could clearly tell he was leaving, the door trembling lightly as he again pushed up against it from the inside.

“I don’t need you and your Decepticon ‘friend’ to let me out! They’ll come for me before you’re ready!”

The berth room was as he left it, unsurprisingly. Smacking the switch to shut the door on Cliffjumper’s continued yammering, Blurr sat down heavily on the pad and then winced, regretting it as his valve twinged. He was too keyed up to rest but too tired to go home, stress shaking inside his wires like an incoming power surge. Restless, he lay on his back, trying to position himself to he was perfectly flat so that his spinal strut could straighten out. It was dark with the door shut, almost pitch but for his own bio lighting and the crack of dim florescence from the hall.

He tried not to think of Shockwave’s offer of a sparkbond. Tried, and failed. Pressing the heels of his palms to his face, he rubbed his eye sockets roughly, groaning aloud. He had been horrified at the time, still was, but without the threat imminent it was more of a dull creeping fear than a sharp panic. If he was smart, he reasoned, he would be better off leaving everything behind. Just hijacking a ship, a small one, and getting away. The colonies in the commonwealth were enormous and not always kept up with. Without being in the immediate line of fire for the Elite Guard there was a strong possibility they’d just cut their losses and let him go if the expense for locating him again outweighed that of his potential squealing on their failures as a government. Which he honestly had no intention of dealing with right now. The idea that it had once been his most pressing worry almost made him laugh.

He wasn’t smart though, he thought, rolling onto his side, because he wasn’t going to run. He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to go back to Velocitron and race, or hide in the metallic jungles of Animatron, or mine dark stone in the outer reaches. He wanted something else.

Reaching to the berth side table, he absently picked up the data pad Shockwave had left there, wondering if it was anything worth the distraction. Clicking on the palette he quickly discovered he had misread the object’s intended use. It was a scrawl pad, Shockwave’s neat glyphs bright on a dark background.

_Blurr, I have returned to work. Please do not leave without first contacting me – I would like to speak with you later._

Succinct without expressing his true intentions, as always. Blurr stared dully at the writing, half propped up on his elbow. How long did he have to come to terms with resigning himself to fate? Not enough, most likely. Itching with nerves, he lay back down, the pad on his chest, and forced his larger visual and auditory feed to shut down, hoping to slow his spark’s ever pressing rattle at least enough to keep himself from tears of frustration.

He must have done a better job of it than he thought, because moments later he found himself startled awake but the click of plating against tile. Sitting up, he carefully placed the pad back on the table and stood, wondering if Cliffjumper was still behind his door, raging at nothing. His fears were confirmed as he approached the living room, the tremor of metal against metal clear from down the hall.

“Shockwave, I want,” and then he stopped, what he wanted already irrelevant as red plating came into view. It was Cliffjumper, but it was not only Cliffjumper, the flash of black and green, bright green, like a shadow in the darkness.

“You fragger,” Cliffjumper started, moving towards him, but Blurr could only stare at the bot behind him, processor stalling.

“Botanica gives her regards,” said the mech, cocking his gun.

By Primus, he thought, what have I done.


	16. Interlude 8: Connections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only one of them was prepared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The first chapter to break form after the last: an interlude that still takes place in the past but not with any of our main characters.

“We don’t have conclusive evidence that he’s involved. I don’t see the need to spend our expenses on something that could just as easily be ignored.”

“You say that now, but what if it comes to light that we were wrong? What if he was involved and our negligence proves fatal? Are you willing to shoulder that blame? Because I’m not.”

“He’s a non-issue! Hardly even Cybertronian, for Primus’s sake! I don’t think we should be wasting our resources on trying to corral a, a, a courier!”

Alpha Trion rose from his seat and raised a hand, silencing Sentinel.

“Your concern is understandable, Magnus,” he said, voice carrying the weight of his words evenly, “but the Council has already taken care of things. At least, preliminary measures.”

Shifting uneasily in his seat, Sentinel leaned across the podium.

“How?”

“We’ve dispatched an asset.”

“An asset?”

Angry again, Sentinel stood without thinking.

“You never received my permission to operate a Guardsman!”

“It isn’t a Guardsman,” said Alpha Trion unflinchingly, “the asset is from the city-state structure. It has nothing to do with one of yours.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Sentinel held his chin aloft.

“What, a cop? How can a lower class flat-pede possibly cap a case like this, if it is as supposedly high level as you say?”

“Because he’s good.”

Botanica had not made her presence known until now. It was pointless to try and leap in the path of an oncoming meteorite, but Sentinel’s voice had grated on her enough. Righting herself alongside Trion, she held Sentinel’s gaze and smiled.

“How good?” He looked guarded now.

“Very good.”

Softly, she extended her wrist, letting her public access port caps draw back and offering a cable.

“This mission is private,” Alpha Trion said, nodding as Sentinel carefully took her hand and let her connect to him, “you understand that there are aspects of it that cannot leave the vocalizer of anyone here, on the off chance we’re right.” The data packet uploaded quickly, as small as it was, and Sentinel pulled away immediately after Botanica disconnected, rubbing himself as if bitten.

“Well,” he looked away, faking aloofness, “I do appreciate your foresight, if you can call it that, but what happens if this ‘amazing cop’ figure fails?”

“Oh, he won’t,” said Botanica, reeling in her cord with a neat click, “because I too am very good.”

She liked the way his optics flickered when she met his again, the contents of his processor slowly beginning their own remote uplink, though he was unaware of it. Her own wrist tingled, and she laid a hand on it, smiling.


End file.
